Heteractis malu--doing it all wrong

[monicaswizzle]

Well, having killed two previous anemones (BTA and LTA), you would think I would know better, but no, I am now hosting a Heteractis malu. I post this tale for two reasons: 1) I welcome any helpful tips or suggestions that people with more experience may have to offer, 2) Although "not smart", I suspect many of my mistakes are pretty typical and maybe a cautionary tale will help save an anemone or two and the frustration for the fish keeper that goes with it.

1) Mistake #1--Not enough research. Last Wednesday I received very short notice that I would be in Rhinelander, WI on business. Since I really like the Divers Den items offered by LiveAquaria (DFS), I took a quick check of their website to see if they had anything I might "need". They had a pair of tank bred Tomato Clowns (A frenatus), which is something I have been sort of on the lookout for. I have a 45 gallon tank with 30 gallon sump already set up and running with a DSB, liverock and lots of calupera, but no fishes. So, I did a quick web search to see which anemones are natural hosts for tomatoes. Emphasis on quick, as in, not very good. The first website I found that listed clowns and their native hosts listed both LTA and H. malu as natural hosts for tomatoes. (Since then I have spent more time and learned that actually neither are believed to host tomatoes in nature. Damn the web!) So, armed with great misinformation, I checked out the DFS, LiveAquaria, Divers Den website for invertebrates and they had a very nice 4" H. malu for sale. I called and ordered both for pickup on Thursday evening.

2) Mistake #2--Rushing it. So, rushing it already got me into buying a pair of clowns and an anemone that they don't normally use. I may get lucky and they may adopt it anyway (some do), or since they are captive bred clowns, they might not have accepted a "natural" one either, but it might have improved my chances. But the rushing it didn't stop there:
a) My DSB varied from a max of 4" to a high of 3", which is a bit marginal for the H. malu. So, on Wednesday night I picked up 20# of "live sand" and carefully added it to the tank. I am pretty sure that the additional sand wasn't deep enough to kill the existing DSB to any significant extent (can happen), but between stirring up the DSB and moving around all the LR, I got a nitrate spike. It had been running too low to measure for 6 or more months, but it jumped up to about 20 to 30. Not at all ideal for adding an anemone. I changed about 50% of the water and it dropped down to 10-15, but that still is not good for acclimation of a very sensitive species.
b) I think wise council would indicate that a 4" (max when inflated) anemone is a bit small for hosting a mature pair of tomatoes. It could very likely work out fine, but if they are "rough with it", it might not have the staying power to get them settled in.

So, I added the anemone (and clowns) to the tank on Thursday night. The lighting (newly purchased) for the tank is 250w, 10k metal halide, which is what they were using at DFS. I put the anemone in the tank with the lights out in the center of a nice open area of sand surrounded by LR that gets very good light by day. Since I didn't want the anemone to move around and/or the clowns to sail into it right away, I put it under a 6" mesh plastic planting pot and left it that way overnight. The next day I left the basket on while the lights were on, just to give it a more gradual adjustment to full light. Saturday I removed the basket and the anemone was still "upright", but not inflated and not appearing to have "dug in" at all.

Late Saturday it rolled over to a corner of the tank and was laying upside down with the foot in the air and the mouth and tentacles on the sand. Taking the theory that less disturbance is best, I left it that way and tested all my water parameters. That is when I discovered the nitrates were high and did a 50% water change, which brought them down around 10+.

Today the anemone was still laying in the corner, no longer upside down, but "on its side" with the foot touching the glass and the mouth facing some LF and calupera. I decided it was a good idea to try and redirect it to the open area of the tank, so I gently moved it back into the circle of sand and into a little depression I had made to help it settle in. I did this during the mid-day, lights out phase of my tank. It remained there for about an hour, but shortly after the lights came on it returned to the same corner that it was in before. Now the foot is resting in a bunch of calupera and the oral disc and tentacles are sort of at a 45-degree angle to the sand. The "good news" is that it is partially inflated and looks the best it has since I brought it home.

So, what to do?

I am considering another 50% water change to drop the nitrates below 10, but I am not sure if that is best. I expect the DSB and the LR to rapidly drop the nitrates anyway, and large water changes always involve some changes in temp, pH, and chemical balances, so it might be best to let things get back to low nitrates the "slow" way. Opinions?

With or without water changes, I am inclined to leave the anemone where it "wants to be" and not move it unless it starts spending a lot of time upside down or obviously distressed.

The clowns are ignoring the anemone for now, which is probably best. In the long run I hope that it thrives and they adopt it, but unless they settled in very gently, it would probably add to the stress for the anemone. Though I have read some theories that an interested clown can help an anemone acclimate.

Well, that is it. Wish me better luck than my sloppy preparation may deserve.

 

[jupiter]

Don't get too caught up in the "low nitrates" hype. The anemone can do just fine in higher nitrates for the short term. You are causing more stress by constantly changing water.

Although a DSB is preferred, you can always add the anemone while the sand bed is a little shallow -as yours was - then add more sand later when the anemone settles down.

H. malu isn't an easy anemone to keep until it is established so keep a close eye on it. When a sand-dwelling anemone is new, it is useful to place its foot on a small rock until it attaches (whch should happen within a few seconds) then move the rock+anemone to the final location; you can bury the rock in sand if you wish. This keeps the anemone from floating around everywhere. The anemone will migrate from the rock into the sand bed within a few days.

Tomato clowns are strange. I could never get them to adopt any anemone. The irony of your situation is that the most common and easiest anemone to keep - the BTA - is the natural host.

Your lighting is fine and everything else seems fine. Do as you suggested and let the anemone do what it wants. Or maybe see if you can turn off all the flow in your tank for a few minutes and place a rock at the anemone's foot and hopefully it will attach. Then turn the flow back on and move the anemone where you want. At that point where it goes will be it's decision.

You should figure out how you killed a BTA and a LTA and how to prevent that from happening again. In a properly set up tank, both species are pretty hardy.

That's all I can think to help you right now. If the malu is healthy, things should be okay if your setup is good.

 

[monicaswizzle]

Thanks Mike--

That more or less fits with my thinking on the matter. I was aware that the H. malu is one of the more challenging (my research wasn't all bad), but this is a different tank from the other two failures and I have a couple years more experience, so I decided to try it (if my web research hadn't steered me to the wrong species, I would probably have gone for the BTA again, though I like the carpet types a bit better from the looks of them).

The BTA was my first anemone and it was very stressed out by a red ball sponge that I was keeping in my sump. It wouldn't settle down at all in the tank and literally "raced" from end to end of the tank by turning sideways and rolling about like a wagon wheel. It took me nearly a week to realize that the red ball sponge was engaging in toxic warfare, even though it was in the sump and the BTA was in the display. As soon as I removed the sponge and did a major water change the BTA stopped racing about and settled down. However, it wasn't in great shape by then and died a few days later.

The LTA I am less certain of. It just never settled in and died a couple of weeks after purchase. It looked healthy before I brought it home, but it never liked my tank and I never figured out why. I did have a coral beauty that would pick at it some, but I never witnessed anything that explained the rapid demise.

The latest on the H. malu is that it is still in the same corner (not sure if it is choosing that corner, or if that is where the currents leave it. I haven't seen it move at all. Both times it was in the middle of the tank for an hour or more and then the next I looked it was in the corner), but it is partially inflated and right side up. If it doesn't really seem to be settling in when I get home from work tomorrow I may try the trick with a small rock and the foot.

Interestingly, one time when I was "checking in" the female clown was very close to the anemone and distinctly "flicked" her tail in and out of the tentacles a few times. I am not sure if it was "deliberate" and given the anemone's semi inflated state, I am not sure if it made any attempt at contact back, but I was pleased to see the interaction all the same. Time will tell if that was just a coincidence, or if the clowns are considering a better host than the macro-algae covered rock that is their current "home".

Thanks again. I will monitor the nitrates closely and not do any more water changing unless they start to rise.

 

[monicaswizzle]

Some Progress

Some Progress

Well, when I got home last night the anemone was still partly inflated (mostly not) and still over in the corner of the tank, so I decided to try the "rock on foot" trick.

I turned off all the power heads and moved the anemone out to the center of the tank. (I moved the lr that it was on/next to--it seemed to be lightly attached, but dropped off during the moving). I "offered the foot" a half of a mussel shell that is part of the "rubble" that is on my DSB. The foot took hold of the piece of shell and then I was able to move it to the "best" spot in the tank and push the other end of the shell into the DSB a bit.

The anemone appeared to release the shell from its foot almost immediately, but it remained in the same location, upright, and still partly inflated. I had my doubts that it was ready to feed, but I went and got a small fragment of shrimp (reported to eat shrimp well by DFS LA), and offered it. The anemone distinctly grabbed the shrimp, but released it after a minute or less of contact. We did that three times on three different spots on the oral disc. Each time the anemone had a distinct "grab" response, followed by a gradual release over the course of a minute or so.

I decided to stop "hassling" it and turned the power heads back on.

This morning it was still in the same spot, still about the same amount inflated, maybe even a bit more inflated--hard to tell. So, I turned the pinheads off and fed the clowns. After they ate, I tried offering the anemone a piece of silveside and another piece of clam. It grabbed both items and "held" them for a good five minutes or so while the power heads were off. When I turned the power heads back on the piece of silver side immediately floated away (to the corner the anemone keeps going to, making me suspect it has been "current and not choice"). The piece of clam remained in the tentacles for a bit and slowly released. As it rolled across the oral disc the anemone grasped it again and slowly released it--a couple of times. Finally the bit floated off.

Not exactly full acclimation, but maybe some progress.

Thanks for the tip Mike. Patience is probably the key thing right now, but any other suggestions are welcome.

 

[jupiter]

It really doesn't sound like the anemone is happy. I don't know if it's due to the health of the animal or if the tank isn't suitable. Normally an anemone will attach right away. Even if it's allowed to float around in the tank, it will eventually find a spot in the tank where it can settle at which point it will attach via its foot and move along the rocks to the sand in a suitable spot. We don't usually like to do this because the place it settles is at the back of the tank or in some other unviewable place.

Do you have pictures of the anemone and the tank? Do you have your tank parameters, etc.? That might help others help you.

 

[monicaswizzle]

Hi Mike--

Your response was more "pessimistic" than I expected so I reread my post. When I said the anemone was "in the same spot" this morning, I meant the spot I moved it to where I would think it would "want to" stay. It may have sounded like I said it was back in the corner spot. Or maybe just the failure to grip tightly with either foot or tentacles strikes you as a sign for concern?

Anyway, here is a bit more info:
1) Tonight when I got home the power had been off (rural area and fairly common) for about 1/2 hour. The powerheads in the tank are on a circut that doesn't reset when tripped, so the tank had light and heat and the return pump, but no other circulation from whenever the power went out until I got home and reset the circut. That may have stressed the anemone some? In any case, it was still in the spot of the tank that I would like it to stay in, but it was upside down with the foot in the air and the mouth on the sand. I offered the foot a discarded turbo snail shell to grasp and it didn't grasp it at all. So I turned the anemone over by hand. The mouth was slightly protruding, but it immediately closed up and the anemone inflated a bit and grasped the discarded snail shell some with tentacles. I turned the power heads back on and three hours later it is still in the same location, still looking about the same amount of happy/unhappy with the environment.

Pictures. I will try to post one after I finish this. I copied the one from DFS LA offline before I purchased, but that is still on my work computer. It WAS a very vibrant shade of deep lavendar/light purple and very nicely extended across the sand. Per their blurb it had been in QT for 6 weeks and was eating well of raw shrimp and mysis PE (what is PE, by the way?) I have had very good luck with DFS LA products, and never found a LA item to be "not as advertized", so I am pretty sure it was in good health when shipped.

Tank parameters--
Temp 78F,
Salinity 1.024
Nitrates--still at 10-15, not going down as fast as I had hoped.
I haven't tested pH or other items recently. I should probably do that to make sure that nothing is suddenly "out of wack".

The total volume is 75 gallons+/-, which consists of a 45 gallon display (with anemone) and a double sump affair with 30 gallons of additional capacity. Sump is unlit, display is lit with 250w, 10k, metal halides. Tank has been up and running for over a year with about 4 inches of DSB, 30# of live rock and "rubble", moderate growt of calupera and a few mushroom corals that were on the rubble when I moved them out of my main display tank to this setup. I had been using the tank as QT, but expect to be done purchasing fish until someone in my main display dies. The 30 gallon double "sump" affair is actually a larvae rearing setup if either my common clown pair, the new tomato clown pair, or my pair of black cap basslets would ever spawn when I have time to deal with it. (The common clowns did once about 18 months ago before I had the set up ready.)

I will post a picture or two and additional paramaters as I have them.

 

[monicaswizzle]

PS--additional residents of the tank are the tomato clown pair that I purchased from DFS LA on the same day. Other than the one time the female flicked the anemone with her tail I haven't seen any other interaction, so I don't think they are stressing (or helping) it.

The DSB is now 5 to 6 inches because I added an additional 20# the day before I added the anemone and clowns, which is the reason for the nitrate spike.

 

[jupiter]

To be honest I don't know what the problem might be. Everything you stated sounds reasonable, even the power outage.

The best I can suggest is that you keep flipping it over if it goes head first. That is almost always a bad sign.

This species is usually pretty hardy once it establishes so you just have to get it past this initial hurdle. If you have a current picture at least we can see what stage it's at right now. I'm guessing it was healthy when it was shipped and I don't doubt that but somewhere along the way it got unhappy.

For now, my best suggestion is for you to not do anything extreme to try and correct its living conditions. You can do small water changes to lower nitrates if you wish and just keep flipping it right-side when necessary. If you have coral rubble or anything heavy, clean, and salt-safe you can surround the anemone so it can grip something/anything and stop floating around; perhaps big marbles or glass jars, pieces of PVC pipe. You can remove any of these objects after it burrows. Hopefully it will start to burrow soon. But don't poke it or prod it except to rotate it if it flips.

Your light may also be too strong for it right now. If you want, you can keep your lights off for a day or so until it settles. This might help. Since you are running 2 MH lamps you might just turn off the one on the side of the anemone. Over time you can gradually increase the light using Todd's screen method. I don't do this but anything is worth a try. It doesn't sound like the anemone is dying but it really should have stuck to something by now; even the rock work.

Anemones are not "super-sensitive" and they can tolerate quite a bit of short-term punishment and bad environment. As I wrote in another thread, it is almost always a poor specimen that doesn't make it in captivity. A healthy animal under "less than ideal" conditions will still take a couple months before it dies. As long as your anemone was healthy you still have a lot of time. Your system sounds acceptable, much more so than some. I just can't understand why it hasn't started to burrow. To be honest, it really should happen fast; sometimes only a few hours before it has burrowed down and planted on bottom of the glass. Sometimes it takes longer though so don't worry too much.

 

[monicaswizzle]

Well Drat! My wife seems to have "relocated" our digital camera (she tends to relocate things when unsupervised) and she is gone on a three day business trip. When I talk to her tomorrow I will see if she can remember where it is. (The new locations wouldn't be so bad, if she could remember them when asked!)

In the meantime I read your other post about malu and the basics of getting a good anemone to start with. I am very very happy with my history with DFS LA in general (though they have supplied all three anemones that I have killed--well, I am still working on the third), and the picture certainly looked like a very vibrant and healthy anemone. So, for sake of argument, lets rule out a "sick" anemone as the root cause. I am pretty confident of my lighting and DSB. The tank has very few other inhabitants, so I doubt they are the cause of stress. You don't seem to think that a few days at 10-15ppm Nitrates would be a cause of that much stress. So, it must be other paramaters.

Flow? I am not sure what is best for a malu. Medium/Strong is what most recommend. The tank is a standard 45, so about 20" tall. It has a return pump that adds water to the top at about 300gph actual rate. There are two SEIO powerheads that are rated at 650gph. These create a "wide" current rather than a directed colum of water and are arranged to direct the water towards the lower half of the tank. The effect rolls sand grains about on the surface, but doesn't "bury" things very fast. There is also a hang on the tank cannister filter that is probably moving a couple of hundred gph and an overflow that flows water out at the same rate as the return pump. I think this is all on the medium end of the spectrum, but not so low as to be a problem. Other thoughts?

pH,
Alkalinity,
nitrites,
amonia

Those are all pretty easy to test and I will go do so. Anything else it would be a good idea to test?

 

[monicaswizzle]

Chemistry Paramaters

Chemistry Paramaters

ph is 8.25
Alk is 11.5 dKH or 4.11 meq/L
Amonia and Nitrites both too low to register

When I went down to get the test water the anemone had flipped upside down a few inches from where I had last had it right side up. So, I put in a shell to see if the foot would attach. It did, but when I lifted the anemone just an inch or two off the DSB it would fall off due to a very weak attachment and/or because it "let go". So, I flipped it right side up and put an empty half mussle shell right on top of the oral disc (to the side of the mouth) and crowded some other rubble bits up against the edge of the oral disc to keep the anemone from moving or floating away or inverting again. Is that what you were recommending Mike?

Here is a "wild" thought. The tank location is in my basement, next to the utilities. I have often noticed that in the morning there is the faint odor of natural gass, which I believe comes from the hot water heater when we take morning showers. The aroma is never strong enough for me to worry about explosion or other issues (the heater vents to the out of doors and the indoor odor is very faint). I suppose it is possible this is diffusing into the tank water. I am not sure what concentration would be needed to cause a problem. I would think it would be pretty high, much higher than I could calmly sniff and say "no big deal".

Time for bed. Thanks for giving advice and moral support!

 

[monicaswizzle]

Morning 7--Report

Morning 7--Report

This morning the anemone is in the same place that I put it, but it is no longer under the half mussel shell, which is about 1 inch away laying on the sand. The shell is too heavy to be picked up by the currents in the tank, so I can only assume that the anemone "worked it off" somehow. I tried feeding and the motions I made around the anemone made it pretty clear it is neither dug in at all, nor is it's foot attached to the empty turbo snail that it is pressed up against. It did show a grasping response when the food touched the tentacles, but no further interest and as soon as I turned the poweheads back on the two food bits floated away.

I'll see if I can find out where the camera went and try for a picture or two when I get home tonight.

 

[jupiter]

This morning the anemone is in the same place that I put it, but it is no longer under the half mussel shell, which is about 1 inch away laying on the sand. The shell is too heavy to be picked up by the currents in the tank, so I can only assume that the anemone "worked it off" somehow. I tried feeding and the motions I made around the anemone made it pretty clear it is neither dug in at all, nor is it's foot attached to the empty turbo snail that it is pressed up against. It did show a grasping response when the food touched the tentacles, but no further interest and as soon as I turned the poweheads back on the two food bits floated away.

I'll see if I can find out where the camera went and try for a picture or two when I get home tonight.

I didn't mean to put anything on top of the anemone. I meant you should put stuff around the anemone, kind of like a fence. Although I don't like the idea of pinning the anemone down, you can also try caging it under a strawberry case or something similar.
Don't try feeding it. It can do fine without food for the short term.
The fact that it isn't grasping is really the main concern I have. Here is what you can try and you can modify it as you deem appropriate. Get a plastic basket such as is used in ponds for filters:

It doesn't have to be that big but large enough so the anemone can't float over the top. Fill the bottom with a single layer of coral rubble or other inert items (~1-2" diam). Place the anemone into the basket and place the basket into the tank. This will keep the anemone from floating around and it will provide a place to get a foot hold. Once it grabs a rock(s) firmly move the rock w/ anemone back to the sand bed so it can leave the rock and burrow. Modify as appropriate by try to keep the container mesh so water can flow through. If you can't get it to grab, I think the anemone is not well and I don't think it will make it.
IME, when a healthy anemone is floating around or hasn't established itself, it tends to get extremely large as it inflates. If it's floating around and is shrinky, that means bad news. These are just my experiences. Once borrowed or settled, it shrinks a bit.
Finally, if you want, turn off the powerheads and just run the return since it seems it's low flow. We aren't worried about the "œbest conditions" right now. We want the anemone to settle. Once it settles, you can put the flow back up.

 

[monicaswizzle]

Hi Mike--
Thanks again for the helpful suggestions. I acutally used a mesh pond pot almost exactly like the one you showed for the first three days the anemone was in the tank. Only difference was I put the anemone on the DSB and put the pot UPSIDE down over the anemone. My thinking was that this arrangement would allow the anemone time to dig the foot in without so much current and that the pot would hold it in a small area if the current did bump it out before digging in. It also limited the light some, which I figured wouldn't hurt for a few days and would give the anemone time to adjust to my tank.

I will go back to this concept, except I will do as you suggest and put the pot UPRIGHT and add some larger pieces of rubble to the pot so the anemone can get a good hold on one of them--assuming it is willing and able to get a good hold on anything.

Most definately the anemone has tended towards less rather than more inflation. It was advertised as 4" when fully expanded with a 1" foot and mouth/oral disc. The foot and mouth dimension seems about right, but it has never been more than 2" or so across the whole organism and the tentacles are somewhere between small bumps and slightly swollen sacs.

Very frustrating if this means the organism is really unhealthy. I would be delighted to find something inadequate in my environment so that I could correct it.

 

[Lance M.]

When you first put the anemone in the tank, how did you acclimate it? Did you notice if it was sticky during any point during this process? (like when you first put it in, when you turned it over, etc.)

For what it's worth, I have a pair of tank raised Tomatoes hosting a green lta. It took them a couple months but it happened. Going strong for almost two years.

 

[monicaswizzle]

Could it be the sponges after all?

Could it be the sponges after all?

First--Lance, thanks for the comment/questions. when I acclimated I used the "drip" method over about 90 minutes to equalize the water chemistry (after a 15 minute float to equalize temp). Since I read that some people are sensetive to malu stings and the seller reported that it was "very sticky", I didn't handle it with my hands at all. I used a plastic "minnow dipper" to transfer it to the tank. It didn't do anything particularly noticable with the foot end (which was resting on DSB, no rock or other surface immediately adjacent), but very shortly after introduction to the tank it took a firm grasp on some bits of calupera (macro algae that I can never spell) that floated by. As of this morning it was STILL holding those bits of algae in its tentacles, so it CAN grasp tightly when so motivated.

Second--While eating my lunch today I was pondering anemone troubles and was recalling how it took me several weeks to more or less prove to myself that my first (and only) BTA was engaged in and badly loosing a chemical war with the red ball sponge in my sump. That got me to wondering what chemicals could possibly be in my current tank that might be having such a severe effect. Here is my thinking--I have been using the current anemone tank as a QT tank for over a year. Since I haven't had any corals in it that need Calcium and since I figure it helps keep the chemistry more aligned with my display tank, whenever I do a water change in the display tank, I use the "old" display water to do a 50% water change on the QT tank.

Now, I don't have any more "display" sponges in the Display tank because I kicked the red ball sponge back to the LFS more than two years ago when I figured out that it was giving the BTA fits. But, I added some LR to the sump a year or more ago and it has several hitchiker sponges on it that are between golf and baseball sized. To make matters "worse", about two weeks before I purchased the anemone, I purchased a "blue photosynthetic" sponge from DFS LA and put it directly into my sump. (I wouldn't know how to evaluate a sponge in QT, so I just skipped it.) The day before I brought the malu anemone home I did a water change on the display tank that is connected to the sponge infested sump and used the "old" display water to do a water change on the QT tank/now home to the malu anemone.

Presto!? The water in the anemone tank may have sponge chemicals in it, despite not having ever housed a significant size sponge.

I am tempted to go home and do a 50% water change and see what happens. On the "go slow here" side, I already did a 40% or so water change using freshly mixed salt water when the malu first acted "unhappy", so I already diluted any sponge toxins that might be there. And, of course a water change has some stress to it, and I don't want to increase the malu's stress.

Still, when I remember how totally crazy the BTA acted until I removed the red ball sponge and did a 50% water change, I think it might be worth doing if no one has any other ideas.

Time to work.

 

[Lance M.]

Do you run carbon? I think if you have some carbon or GFO, you don't really need to worry about allelopathy that much.

 

[monicaswizzle]

Good point. No, I don't run carbon. I wouldn't want to on my display tank, but there is no reason I couldn't on the tank the anemone is in. I should probably add some carbon to the cannister filter that is really there for water motion as much as filtration.

I have a picture coming up. I am on dial up, so it takes forever for it to upload.

In the meantime, I turned off the return pump and did a 25% water change on the tank with the anemone. I completely drained the sump setup which would be an additional 30 gallons of new water. I am mixing the water up now and heating it. Tommorrow morning I will refill the sump sytem with 100% new water and then put the sump pump on low so it slowly adds it to the tank with the anemone. That will amount to about a 50-60% water change done over the course of 18 hours or so. Hopefully not too stressful on the anemone and should remove most of any sponge toxins that might be in the water, if there are any. I am kind of at a loss. Maybe the picture will help.

Carbon is a good idea in any case.

Thanks!

 

[monicaswizzle]

A picture is worth 1000 words

A picture is worth 1000 words

This is the H. malu at 8pm tonight. I forgot to send home the picture of it from DFS LA, but sufice it to say, it looked a LOT better in that picture than it does now.

 

[monicaswizzle]

Small Progress--Out of Ideas

Small Progress--Out of Ideas

Well, When I did the second major water change the anemone did grip the half mussle shell that was next to it with its foot and has remained solidly perched on the shell ever since without moving around the tank, so I didn't do the step of putting it into a mesh pot with rubble until it gripped something.

Otherwise, I have added some material at the top of the tank to cut the light a bit (I could add more, but I don't think too much light is really the problem). I have added charcol to my canister filter in case some sponge (or other) toxin still remains in the water and is stressing it.

My nitrates now are back to zero.

So, I don't know what else to do but wait and see.

The anemone doesn't appear to be making any "effort" to dig into the sand. Although it now stays in one spot (has for 60 hours or more), it isn't inflated to anything like "full" and healthy looking and it shows no interest in eating. (Again this morning it gripped food and actually moved the food about on the oral disc a bit, dropped it onto the sand and then actually picked it back up, but as soon as I turned on the powerheads it slowly released and let the food float away.)

Something in the tank isn't right and/or the anemone somehow went from good health to very bad health in a short span of time. At this point I don't think it makes sense to alter things that I have no real idea would be helpful, so I just check on it several times each day and so far see no improvement or worsening.

Thanks all. Let me know if you have other ideas. I will let you know when/if it dies or recovers.

 

[venom550pm]

any updates?