heteractis crispa spawn

[Ron Popeil]

ew. tonight my heteractis crispa anemone spawned. i had no idea this was coming. nor do i know what may have triggered it. but it certainly made quite a mess. i noticed my tricinctus clowns did not appear to be breathing comfortably, so i immediately did a 50 gallon water change. unfortunately, what i assume is sperm, continued to pour out. ill probably need to do another water change tomorrow.

here are some pictures!











as i drained the water this milky fluid continued to spew out in thick strands.



so my question is, how does this affect the fish? am i over reacting or can this severely impede gill function in the fish? any other ill effects i should be concerned with?

 

[Ron Popeil]

....and now my six inch maxima clam is joining in the excitement.

 

[OrionN]

Both of these animal can add quite a bit of biomass into the water.
What I did when my large clams or anemone spawn is to change almost 100% of the water the next day. I always have mixed water on hand so when I see this, if I have the time, I suck the sperms out as my anemone pump it out. After they finish I mix enough water for the water change the next day. I use tap water to mix salt so I don't have to wait for my RO to make water.

 

[dartier]

Thanks for posting the photos. They helped me understand what I observed last night in my tank.

I have a new Sebae anemone in there (not sure if it is a Malu or Crispa) that moved deeper into my rocks. I thought he was trying to get his foot in a comfortable spot, but it left him unable to open as much, so I decided to remove a rock towards the front to leave a horse shoe shape for him.

The tank is in wall so I have to work from the back and it took me a bit to get the rock out and into my sump. When I finished and went to look at the result from the front I noticed the water was a bit cloudy and 4 or 5 string things were floating around. They looked just like your 4th picture. I assumed they were a bacterial film off the bottom of the rock and the cloudiness was sediments kicked up. Both explanations that I came up with were a stretch as I run bare bottom and dose carbon into my sump in a section with crushed coral specifically for the bacteria to grow to keep it out of the display.

I guess me moving the rock and working around the anemone must have triggered it to spawn ... poor guy must have thought he was about to be a snack.

Dennis

 

[Pinkskunk]

so my question is, how does this affect the fish? am i over reacting or can this severely impede gill function in the fish? any other ill effects i should be concerned with?

when my carpet does this the first time all my fishes went in and eat whatever the carpet is releasing....... :hmm4:

i only change 30 gallon of water out of 120 gallon and no ill effect on the fishes. the next few times the carpet do this i just do nothing and still no ill effect on the fishes

fishes: Allardi, pinkskunk, dawf angels, tang.

 

[garygb]

I think your clowns will be fine. When I've had anemones spawn and make the water completely murky, the clowns breathe harder until the water clears up, but I haven't ever had a loss. I just change the activated carbon and stay on top of the skimmer collection. I used to change the tank water, but now I don't do that either.

 

[Ron Popeil]

i threw in some carbon last night in addition to the water change just in case.

the water is clear, the clowns look great....and everyone is happy. thanks everyone!

 

[worm5406]

Too bad it did not have a mate to spawn with.

Spawning is caused by stress sometimes... I know it was not a full moon. Anything cause it?

 

[Ron Popeil]

nothing had changed for this system beyond a feeding of shrimp two days prior. i had been feeding the fish in both systems a bit more to help with acclimating of some new inhabitants. perhaps the increase of nutrients in the water signaled a seasonal cue?

 

[Pastey]

The moon looked pretty full to me this morning when I left for work?

 

[worm5406]

It is cloudy here with a chance of rain for last few days.. I would not know... HAHAHAHA

 

[sjwitt]

My new Blue Gig 'clouded' its TT last night too. BTW it was a full moon or pretty close to one.