Carpet anemone losses stickiness in one day.

[COreefer]

The LFS brought in a haddoni carpet today, I saw it when it came out of the bag. It seemed to settle in real fast an with in an hour it looked nice, super sticky, healthy and perfect sized compared to the pedal disc. I mean when he put it in the tank it grabbed a hold of some turbo shells and would not let go. I went back tonight to check on it (I am considering buying it) and it had a clown in it...the anemone looked over inflated and the tentacles looked elongated. The LFS owner touched it and this anemone that was super sticky when it came in, now had no stickiness whatsoever. Its an awesome specimen...the mouth stays tight primarily and it seemed to have attached to a rock. Anyone have any thoughts on this, seen this before?

BTW, I'm certain it is S. haddoni....

 

[taylor t]

I've seen it before. I've had them turn it on and off like a switch, even with well established haddoni. I don't know why, I'm guessing it's part of not being acclimated/being snooty. When mine have turned the stickiness off, it's usually during acclimation/moving. I've noticed when fully acclimated and healthy, they are like velcro/super glue all the time. When I've moved mine from tank to tank before, I've noticed they can completely turn off the stickiness. Others have kept it when moved. Sorry, I have no real explaination. Yes, I've seen it before. Why, I don't know.

 

[Toddrtrex]

I have seen this a couple of times with mine. One time was after I moved my blue one from one tank to another. The other was when I was redoing the rock work in a different tank, and had to move the Haddoni that was in there.

In both cases they were back to normal the next day. So it seems that they can "turn off" their stickiness when stressed. In my case I wasn't too worried since they both had been with me for years and were fully healthy. I would be a little concerned about the one at your LFS since it just came in. I would (( if possible )) give it a week or two to settle in before buying it.

 

[COreefer]

Thanks guys...I'm going to keep an eye on it and see what happens.

I'm also interested to find out what physiological process it occurring when they immediately lose their stickiness.