BTA partially eaten by brittle star

[Cisco_fishco]

Hi All,

I had a beautiful BTA that (I suspect) has been partially eaten by a brittle star. The Maroon Clown that hosts it has also suffered some scrapes and torn fin. The anemone is in relatively poor shape with a hole eaten through the middle, but still has most of its tentacles (pics to follow).

Do you think it can be rescued? If so I will set up a hospital tank this evening.

Separately, I only realised that brittle stars can eat these this morning after some searching on here, so I'm planning to go on a hunt tonight after caring for this anemone.

Kind regards

 

[Cisco_fishco]

See image below

 

[Cisco_fishco]

Update

I went brittle star hunting and got two big ones that have now gone to the great big ocean in the sky. As an aside, these are so creepy. They crawled into rocks and I had to break it apart to get at them.

With that I taken car of I turned to the two nems that were partly eaten.

I've set up a little container for them and tied it to the side of the tank. I drilled some holes into the container to let a gentle flow through. Unfortunately I don't have a hospital tank and won't be able to get one until the weekend. I have some meagre hope for them based on the fact that the holes are through the middle meaning the entire outer of the anenomes are still in tact. Some tentacles were inflated tonight.

 

[Cisco_fishco]

 

[AirForceAquariu]

Brittle stars don't eat a healthy anemone. You killed those two for no reason. The anemone was sick or dying already.

 

[daveM100]

Why would you kill brittle stars.

 

[Cisco_fishco]

There are threads on here of other people having brittle stars eat anenomes which led me believe they were responsible. If they didn't eat it then it looks like something else did, here is a pic of the night before:

And the morning after:

 

[Catchoftheday]

It looks like it's inside coming out mine do that sometime

 

[m0nkie]

Looks like its gaping through the mouth?

And you need a lot more holes for the container.

 

[Cisco_fishco]

Just to clarify that hole goes through to the other side, through the base of the anenome's foot.

 

[sctip]

I've seen videos of brittles looks like they are eating them.

 

[Cisco_fishco]

Just a follow up for anyone reading in the future. The anemone that had the hole in it died almost the next day.

Since removing the two brittle stars I introduced a new BT anemone which is thriving. I can't say for certain that it was the brittle stars but the fact that this one hasn't been pestered supports that it was one of them.

 

[shifty51008]

I am gonna have to say the old anemone was on its way out before the brittle star. They get blamed for alot of things but the truth is they are part of the cleanup crew and usually dont eat anything that isnt already dying.

 

[BuzzPion]

I'm going to have to agree here. They didn't kill your nem. Should have asked here first instead of killing them.

They were doing you a favor helping get rid of that dying anemone.

I'm actually looking to buy two of them.