Carpet Anemone Care

jonnyu

jonnyu

New member
First off thank you in advance for the help. I just bought a Carpet Anemone from a LFS. I have had my tank running for about 6 months now. The whole reason I setup this tank was for the CA. The CA i got looks pretty good. I just concerned about its care. This pic was from the first day I put him in the tank.
IMAG0506.jpg

I put him on a rock and he seemed to let go and feeling the sand. So I flipped him over. He has been sitting in the same location for about 2 days. These pic's are from this morning
IMAG0513.jpg

IMAG0514.jpg

IMAG0515.jpg

Now this pic is from a few minutes ago. I keep seeing his mouth open and show his stomach.
IMAG0517.jpg


Is this normal? I tried to feed him but he grabs the food then releases it. I just read here dont feed him silversides. So what should I feed him? Does he need to be fed?
The tank is a 110 gallon tank, I have 2 150w HQI and 4 65w Powercompacts.
Do i need to point a power head towards him? Does his foot look ok? It does not seem like he has a full grasp on the rock but he is attached. Thanks for the help
 
do not feed acclimating Stichodactyla haddoni!

JMO but don't make any major adjustments to water quickly. Bring conditions up to NSW values. Haddoni doesn't appreciate brisk water movement. Do not point powerhead at this animal!
Research the species ASAP.

Welcome to Reef Central!
 
Feeding is not necessary like mentioned above. If in the next few months after it has settled in you want to try and feed it shrimp, kill and baby scallops are good choices. Also a little trick I learned with mine is that if you gently place it on the disk and give it a couple of good wiggles to act like its trying to get away it will result in a very aggressive feeding response and will not let go.
 
Dig the guy a hole in the sand, and put him in it. I'd also advise turning off the power head off until he attaches depending on the flow you have.
 
Dont point any powerheads directly at it, no animal would like that. As other have mentioned, dont feed it while its acclimating. Give it a few weeks to get settled in. If it needs more flow it will go looking for it. Also, as mentioned previously dont change water params too drastically. Small water changes - rather than your normal 20% go half and do two 10% changes about a week apart. Other than all that, just give it some time and see if you got a surviver. Fingers crossed. If you do, then once established it will be very hardy and eat silversides, shrimp, krill, scallops, ect. You'll know it's healthy and good to go when the foot is firmly stuck to something, its not traveling, and the tentacles become sticky again.

Good luck.
 
Your rock work makes me nervous. Haddoni's are amazingly strong animals. They can easily lift rocks, even very large rocks, while positioning their foot. This can cause a rock slide that kills them, if the rocks above them are not completely stable.

Pic's can be deceiving, but does your anemone have two pedal disks? In the second and third pic, it looks like one pedal disk is attached and has moved down between the sand and rock. It looks like there's another one that's not attached. Or is it just one that's folded up in a strange way?
 
update: He has attached himself to the rock and has put a large part of his foot under the sand. He seems to be doing good. Is it normal that his stomach comes out of his mouth? He did it a few times and mucus like stuff came out. After he put his stomach back in. How often do they do this? I did a water change on the 28th. Changed 15 gallon with NSW. Thanks for the input.
 
It is not normal for its "stomach" to become inverted -- it is a bad sign.

Do you have a picture of that? It could be it acclimating, or it going down hill.
 
Toddrtrex said:
It is not normal for its "stomach" to become inverted -- it is a bad sign.

Do you have a picture of that? It could be it acclimating, or it going down hill.
Click to expand...

Well it's wierd. When moon lights turn on it does this
<a href="http://s909.photobucket.com/albums/ac292/jonugalde/110%20saltwater/?action=view&current=IMAG0539.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i909.photobucket.com/albums/ac292/jonugalde/110%20saltwater/IMAG0539.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
When lights turn back on it goes back to this
<a href="http://s909.photobucket.com/albums/ac292/jonugalde/110%20saltwater/?action=view&current=IMAG0517.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i909.photobucket.com/albums/ac292/jonugalde/110%20saltwater/IMAG0517.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
The water is at 77F Nitrite at .1 Nitrate at 5 PH 8.4 Cal 480 Salinity 1.025 Phosphate .25
I am trying to get my skimmer to work but all I can seem to do is get micro bubbles in my tank.
Should I turn the skimmer off? Should I do a 20% water change to get rid of the Nitrites, nitrates, and phosphates?
 
nitrite = bad, you shouldn't have nitrite, seems like your tank is going through a mini cycle, or not read of an anemone. do an emergency water change, get your skimmer working
 
Well did an emergency water change. So I am going to retest in a hour or so. The skimmer I am working on that now.
 
The water in the fuge is the same as the water in the DT. Don't know what else to tell you other than keep water params as stable as possible. It's kindoff a bad sign that stomach inverted out. The anemones that I've had that did that usually eventually died. Hopefully yours pulls out of this. Don't try to feed it for now.
 
What light requirements are needed? I have 2 150w HQI 15k and 4 65watt PC bulbs antic . I was reading a few articles online that where saying the 15k were not good for anemones because they do not help with photosynthesis. Is this true? Should I change the 15k for 10k or 6.5k bulbs? Thanks
 
your lighting should be fine.. Higher temperature bulbs give out lower PAR values, However with 2x 250W halides (even at 15k) you have plenty of PAR for your NEM. Haddoni does not need too much light.
 
not necessarily. Just get him out before he starts to decay. When it starts to look like it's melting then it's time to take it out. It will usually look totally deflated and melting. I think if it totally looks like it has inverted totally, as in inside out (all stomach out), it probably means it's dead, but i'm not sure about that one.
 
Why don't you try to trade him to your LFS if you think he isn't gonna make it in your tank. He might recover at the LFS.
 
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