Green Anemones

[beedyb220]

Hello,

I have had a Green Anemone for about 4 days. She puffed up nicely and attached to a rock for the first 2 days. Afterwards, she attached herself to the glass and worked her way to the top of the tank. This morning I looked at her and she looked deflated with her mouth open.

What should I do to help her? Should I move her back to the bottom of the tank? I have turned my powerheads off while she was acclimating. The pic was taken with just the acintics on around 11:45 MST.

BTW, the tank parameters are fine and it has been up and running for 1 year.

Thanks,
Bryan Norfleet

 

[garygb]

It is good to cover your powerheads so the anemone can't get pulled in, but I wouldn't recommend you turn them off. The anemone will not settle in a spot until it finds the proper flow. You don't mention your lighting, but that info. would be helpful, along with water parameters. GBTA's like to have their foot planted under an overhang or in a cave in the live rock. They like good strong daylight spectrum (not actinic) lighting. And, they also like moderate to good random water flow, as can be achieved with several powerheads and/or a wavemaker.

 

[beedyb220]

Thanks for the info. My parameters are all zeros. (Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate) The PH is at 8.6. I am using Power Compacts. (4x65w) on my 55g. I only have 3 fishes. (2 clown and 1 Zebra damsel) I only add B-ionic (15ml) daily and Phyto-Feast.

It looks as if there is some waste coming out of it's mouth now. I did feed it a krill the other day.

Thanks.

 

[raen]

It may be having a big ole poo. Mine did the same, I had a HUGE panic attack, and then she was fine. I contacted Karens pink anemones and she was FANTASTIC with tons of info! I hope you can find some good info there that may help you.

 

[garygb]

The parameters look good. I assume you monitor your alkalinity with testing. You don't mention your specific gravity, but you should shoot for 1.025-1.027 range. In a 55 gallon with pc's, you will want to have some hills of liverock that go up close to the water's surface so the anemone can find a place in the top half of the aquarium. PC light doesn't penetrate very deeply. I would also suggest you have primarily daylight, as actinic provides a negligible amount of photosyntheically active radiation (PAR). In fact, when adding your total watts for your tank, don't factor the actinic watts in at all. Other than aesthetics, they are useless for anemones.

 

[beedyb220]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12371984#post12371984 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by raen
It may be having a big ole poo. Mine did the same, I had a HUGE panic attack, and then she was fine. I contacted Karens pink anemones and she was FANTASTIC with tons of info! I hope you can find some good info there that may help you.

You may be correct... It looks as if she is bouncing back into form.

Thanks for the info..

http://www.karensroseanemones.com/ is quite helpful

 

[beedyb220]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12372096#post12372096 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by garygb
The parameters look good. I assume you monitor your alkalinity with testing. You don't mention your specific gravity, but you should shoot for 1.025-1.027 range. In a 55 gallon with pc's, you will want to have some hills of liverock that go up close to the water's surface so the anemone can find a place in the top half of the aquarium. PC light doesn't penetrate very deeply. I would also suggest you have primarily daylight, as actinic provides a negligible amount of photosyntheically active radiation (PAR). In fact, when adding your total watts for your tank, don't factor the actinic watts in at all. Other than aesthetics, they are useless for anemones.

Thanks Gary,

My specific gravity is 1.026.

I have given thought on adding more liverock to place corals closer to the light. I have some that need cooking and I guess I need to get on it.

When you suggest primarily daylight, are you saying to use daylight spectrum bulbs for all four lights? What is the purpose of actinics anyways? I got them with the unit.

 

[Patrick12]

Another thing to consider is the lighting scheme you have the anenome under. Your anenome is doing the classic "I wish I had stronger lighting" maneuver. Whenever an anenome goes to the top like that, it usually....not always though....means that they are not happy with the intensity of the lighting they are under and they go to the top to get as close to the lighting source as possible to get greater intensity. A GBTA should be able to adjust to PCs...but don;t think that translates to any of the other anenomes. They usually need good T5s or MHs.

Nice anemone. Hope it does well for you.

 

[garygb]

Beedy, yeah, I was referring to the spectrum when I used the term daylight (for pc's that would generally be in the 6700K to 10000K range). For shallow water animals, the daylight is what you want to aim for. The purpose of actinics has to do with the color that they bring out in the animals. The zooxanthellae appear to glow under actinics and the blue affect balances out the more yellow look of daylights. So, they look pretty but they don't really do anything as far as anemones are concerned. For very deep water cnidaria, where most all the daylight is filtered out, then it would be appropriate. The host anemones come from shallower waters where daylight penetrates and so they need much stronger light than those deep water denizens.