Bubble tip anemone

S

Speedfreak241

New member
I recently bought a bubble tip anemone and within 6 min in my tank it grabbed on tight and opened up. My maroon clown instantly hosted it and has been with it non stop. The Anemone is about 5-6" across and the clown is 2-3". My parameters seem fine and all my corals are doing good. The only problem I've been having is that everyday around the same time it will shrink up into a hole in the Rock and become only 1-2" and looks completely deflated. Every time I have done a 5-10% water change and a hour later it looks great again, fully open and healthy looking. The tank is a 90 gallon with a wet dry and coralife 150 skimmer, I have two metal halide lights on it and has been up for over 5 years.
 
are you dosing Alk and Ca? I came to find out that they are like SPS when it comes to parameters. They don't have a lot of forgiveness. When you mentioned it expands fully when you do a water change.
 
I think this is normal - mine does the same thing (it's very healthy and I've had it for 8-9 months).
 
I am not dosing calcium and alkalinity because I do not have a alk test. I know that dosing one affects the other so I am waiting till I can get a good test kit.
 
Have you NOT done a water change and seen if it will inflate again?

I have an RBTA that's about 3.5" across (not including tentacles) when inflated. It hosts two porcelain crabs and two juvenile clownfish, so it takes a LOT of abuse. Most evenings it will completely deflate and shrivel up. Within a couple of hours it's fully inflated again. Anemones do this to basically do an internal water change. Unless it deflates and stays deflated for an extended period, or its mouth is gaping, or it turns inside out, it's probably fine.
 
Mine deflates about 1-2 days after eating and is usually fine an hour or two afterwards. Sometimes early in the morning he's closed up like a mushroom stump but fully inflated, ****es off my clown but when I come home from work its fully open and inflated. Its gotten to the point that my 9 year old daughter will say, "dad the anemone is pooping, uhg." I usually feed a small piece of salmon weekly.
 
Again today at 4:30 it started to deflate and by 5:30 it was deflated I'll see whether it stays this way without doing a water change. It seems normal because it does it everyday at the same time.
 
I just thought of this as well. The anemone could just be getting used to your lighting cycle. When my lights ramp down to moonlights my nems will "deflate" for a little while as well. So maybe wherever you got them from had a certain lighting cycle that went dim around 4:30 or so every day.
 
Thought I would update the anemone is still shrinking but the times are getting later every day so I think it's just the lighting. It is doing great and expanding over 6" not including tentacles.
 
Well after a couple days the anemone stopped shrinking and today I have even better news. The anemone is now 2 anemones. Is there anything I should do that that it has split. It split after I fed it for the second time, I gave it almost a whole cube of mysis and it split 2 days later.
 
Now I have a new problem. The one that split went underneath my rock where there's no light is he ok because I can't get to him unless I move a few rocks. Will he be ok with no light and if so for how many days.
 
Speedfreak241 said:
Now I have a new problem. The one that split went underneath my rock where there's no light is he ok because I can't get to him unless I move a few rocks. Will he be ok with no light and if so for how many days.
Click to expand...

I have lost anemones this way.. they are too stupid / too weak to make it out. It took over a month to die though. so I would move it after a week.
 

Help my anemones still aren't doing good they are all deflated and ones bleaching because I had to have a friend but him in a breeder box because the clown was swimming with him in his mouth. They only open at night and not all the way during the day they are all shrunk up. They still eat mysis when I feed them with a turkey Baster.
 
DO NOT FEED THEM! Why are you insisting on feeding them? They do not need to eat anything And LEAVE THEM ALONE. Anemones that have just split need to close up and heal for at least 2-3 weeks before being fed. You should at most feed them once they heal one to two times per week.
If you over feed them they will split as you found out. They only need a few mysis if you do feed them but again they will catch some out of the water as it floats around the tank so they do not need to be fed at all.

I suggest that you do a google search for bubble tip anemones and start reading. Your anemones are completely normal.
 
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