Have i got a shy Malu?

[cartouche]

My Brown Malu seems to have this distict desire to hide himself away as much as possible..

It seems he'll do anything to hide in a cave and squeeze himself into some tiny crevice! Fully open its quite big, he's healthy and has a true pair of percs to play with. Water parameters are all good, 2ft deep tank with 2x250w MH... maybe lighting is too strong? but there are plenty of arears that are 'shaded', but he doesn't seem content with that, he just wants to dissappear??


Any suggestions??

TAI

 

[BonsaiNut]

Malus are sand anemones. Do you have a decent sand bed for him to dig into? Rare for them to stick in the rocks if sand is available.

 

[cartouche]

Sand bed is minimal, ie approx 1cm.

When we bought him he was attached to a piece of rock, not the sand, also he had been there for a good while, I checked with the FS. We took the rock aswell so as not to disturb him.

 

[BonsaiNut]

Do you have a photo? He doesn't seem to be behaving like a H. malu. Perhaps he is a different type of anemone? Otherwise I am stumped - I don't know why a H. malu would want to hide in the rocks.

 

[cartouche]

It will be really difficult to get a photo without moving him...

I've read something on another site stating that they like to place their anchor point 'foot' in a dark crevis with their tenticles in the light. They will often wander around trying to find their optimum position but can often kill themselves in the process by either getting sucked into filters, lack of light through misplacement (sounds familiar) or starve to death cause there in such an awkward place they cannot feed.


Mine can't be getting hardly any direct light, I can hardly see him myself! I'm amazed his got through the hole he did, what worries me is that if he doesn't like where his is its going to be virtually impossible for him to get back.

How long do you think I should leave it before I intervene?