Carpet nem keepers, give me your opinion

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I've had this anemone for a few months now. When I bought it I planned to set up a hospital tank and treat it as it wasn't sticky and was face down, I rolled the dice on it.

Long story short it started to look much better just while drip acclimating it to my tank so I did not treat and added it to my display. Since they it's kind of been stagnant so I'd like to get opinions on coloration and overall health. Basically should I attempt to get it out of this rock and treat it with antibiotics?


Here is what it looks like currently about 30 minutes before lights out:


I don't really see it do the deflate inflate cycle I read about with bacterial infections, honestly it always just kinda looks like this. My clowns have grown at a very fast rate so I'm not sure if htey are just too large for the small, 3-4" gigantea or if this is just a stressed anemone.

Tank info:
75g
1.025
78.5-80F
8.3 DKH
450 calcium
1450-1500 magnesium
trace elements tracked by ATI ICP

Lighting, just about directly under a 250w hamilton 14k halide. 10" off water in a 16" deep tank with XHO supplementation. Tank is very stable.

It's recessed in a hole in the rock, I see clowns carry food pieces towards it but haven't witnessed it eat. I haven't fed it personally.

Is this a color morph of gigantea or just a bleached green variety? Does that mouth look normal? It doesn't appear to gape, not sure what that crud is by it's mouth. Can aiptasia be problematic for a gig? I see one in that hole in the picture.



Thanks for any help.

Matt
 
Hey Matt, you should reach out to Mihn (Orion), he's really good at treating and diagnosing nems and probably the one who really started using cipro for new wild nems. It does look a little light to me, but I wouldn't necessarily say it's bleached.


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Hey Matt, you should reach out to Mihn (Orion), he's really good at treating and diagnosing nems and probably the one who really started using cipro for new wild nems. It does look a little light to me, but I wouldn't necessarily say it's bleached.


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Thanks John,

I'll repost this in the general forum area too and maybe shoot Orion a PM with a picture.

It is hard to tell if that's just its color or not, when I got it, it was very light and bright yellow so I think there has been some improvement.
 
Looks like a bleached green. Mouth looks ok not too gaped/open. I'd be wary of clowns hosting since I have lost nems from too much snuggling. Especially if the nem is already not in the best shape to begin with I'll give it a few weeks before clownfish. The carpet should be stronger than Aips when healthy.
 
If it was 100%, just like James said, the aiptaisa would be hiding from IT. As it is, I'm sure that the aiptaisia isn't helping it. Since it's just one next to it, I would just zap it really quickly with some pickling lime or something to that effect.

Your gigantea should color up to the neon green variety (the nicest color morph there is, IMO). It doesn't look sick ... just ... weak for some reason.

How much bigger are your clowns relative to it? My gigs took a beating when I unleashed 30 baby clowns onto them awhile back. (And these were established gigs that I've owned for many years). I tried nursing them back to health by feeding, but the clowns would steal their food. Some bleached, some got shortened tentacles. After about 5 months with no improvement, I moved the gigs to another tank with only 2 clowns and they've been regaining their tentacle length/coloration. I'll dig up pictures when I get a chance to later tonight.

Have you tried feeding?
 
Looks like a bleached green. Mouth looks ok not too gaped/open. I'd be wary of clowns hosting since I have lost nems from too much snuggling. Especially if the nem is already not in the best shape to begin with I'll give it a few weeks before clownfish. The carpet should be stronger than Aips when healthy.

That sounds a lot like what's going on here. Maybe I should start by separating my clowns for a while.
 
If it was 100%, just like James said, the aiptaisa would be hiding from IT. As it is, I'm sure that the aiptaisia isn't helping it. Since it's just one next to it, I would just zap it really quickly with some pickling lime or something to that effect.

Your gigantea should color up to the neon green variety (the nicest color morph there is, IMO). It doesn't look sick ... just ... weak for some reason.

How much bigger are your clowns relative to it? My gigs took a beating when I unleashed 30 baby clowns onto them awhile back. (And these were established gigs that I've owned for many years). I tried nursing them back to health by feeding, but the clowns would steal their food. Some bleached, some got shortened tentacles. After about 5 months with no improvement, I moved the gigs to another tank with only 2 clowns and they've been regaining their tentacle length/coloration. I'll dig up pictures when I get a chance to later tonight.

Have you tried feeding?

I'll try to get rid of that aiptasia also. I was just worried about overspray on the nem with Aiptasia X but I know there are other remedies.

The female has grown to about the length of the anemone now, so for sure out of proportion and could easily be stressing it.

I haven't tried to feed it yet. I was worried about taxing it's system more when I first got it. Maybe I'll try to give it a small piece of a shrimp today and see if it can grab it.
 
If the female is same size lengthwise you should def remove it. I'd be comfy if the nem was 5-10x bigger than the clownfish, and you have two I'm assuming.

Gigs don't require sand but you might be able to try that as well to see if it makes it more comfy. Low light might also work for a while until the colors come back.
 
as long as the mouth remain closed and not gapping, I'd leave it be. also, if they die, they tend to die within 2-3 weeks. so it's probably on a slow road to recovery.

I'd remove any large clownfish to prevent damaging it. if any aiptasia nearby, kill them. and feed it salmon chunks and let it eat every couple days. it will grow color back in no time

keep that rock high up in the tank, and under strong flow

mine sits about 3-4 inch under water surface under MH lights. an inch away from the wavemaker
 
If the female is same size lengthwise you should def remove it. I'd be comfy if the nem was 5-10x bigger than the clownfish, and you have two I'm assuming.

Gigs don't require sand but you might be able to try that as well to see if it makes it more comfy. Low light might also work for a while until the colors come back.

it will have sand in the new tank so I'll place it so it has the option. Once I see the fish I added to the new system are doing well I'll pull the two clowns and add them to the new tank. I'm wondering just how long I'd have to keep them apart now though if it needs to do that much growing.
 
as long as the mouth remain closed and not gapping, I'd leave it be. also, if they die, they tend to die within 2-3 weeks. so it's probably on a slow road to recovery.

I'd remove any large clownfish to prevent damaging it. if any aiptasia nearby, kill them. and feed it salmon chunks and let it eat every couple days. it will grow color back in no time

keep that rock high up in the tank, and under strong flow

mine sits about 3-4 inch under water surface under MH lights. an inch away from the wavemaker

I'll give that a go. Sounds like the general consensus is pull the clown and see if it perks up.

Man, I was hoping to keep it a little lower in my tank on an island. Hopefully it works out that way, If not I'll figure something out.
 
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