How often do nems poop?

B

BigGimp77

New member
So here's the thing. Every other day for the past 2 weeks I've been feeding my nem. I feed him a half cube of frozen brine shrimp, which i thaw in a cup with water then squirt into his tentacles gently with a turkey baster.

I feed him before work (11am) and like clockwork he looks like complete crap when I get home (9pm). Doesn't matter how much I feed or what I feed him.

On days I don't feed him, he will look great all day even when I get home at night. Today I fed him and was home in time to actually see the brown stringy mess that came out of his butt/mouth.

I've read that anemone will looks like complete crap when they poop. Should he be pooping like clockwork every time I feed him? I don't think I'm feeding him that much compared to his size (about 5 inches in diameter). I've read people feeding whole silver slides twice a week to their nem so I doubt I'm over feeding him.

It's kinda scary (although I've been getting used to it) when you come home and it looks like your nem is gonna get the bucket.
 
BTA. Color is fine. It just shrivels up. Will be back to normal by 2-3am. Parameters are all in check. 0 amm 0 trite 5-10 trate 8 alk.
 
What is your salinity?

What lights do you have? What size tank?

Any reason why you are feeding it so often? And why are you using frozen brine? There are a lot better foods available. My anemones (( Haddonis )) don't look like "crap" when expelling waste, but I feed them frozen (( thawed )) krill, and don't feed them nearly as often.
 
Sorry. lol Salt is at 1.025. Lights = 1 acitic blue 2 10K t5s with individual reflectors. I'm feeding it Mysis sorry. I've read that Mysis is good to feed nems.

I figured if people feed their nems Silver slides twice a week, then feeding my nem 3 times a week with a little bit of mysis wouldn't hurt. When I first got it I tried feeding it once a week with similar results.
 
What size tank? What wattage bulbs?

I would cut back on the feedings -- if it looks better when you don't feed it, I would cut back to once a week and see what happens.
 
Ok. I cut back the feedings to once a week on either Sunday or Monday. Like clock work he will poop 8-10 hrs later.

However, throughout the week he is still pooping/looking like hell every 2-3 days despite not feeding him. And I know it's poop because I've caught him in the act.

Yesterday we went to the fish store and got a couple things. The nem looked normal when we got home. I hadn't fed him since last Sunday. While we were acclimating our new creatures we watched ad he slowly began to deflate and shrivel up. He then began to poop and a lot of brown stringy stuff came out of his mouth. About 3-4 hours later he was back to normal.

It seems strange to me that he would still shrivel up and expel brown stringy stuff 2-3 times a week when I'm only feeding once a week! Is this normal? And is it normal to take 3-4 hours to deflate/poop and then return to normal?

Side note:
My 2 true percs have completely ignored my nem since we got him (about 2 months). We got a pair of Porcelain anemone crabs yesterday at the fish store. Well after we put the crabs in there one of our clown fish actually started to pay attention to the nem. She swam in it a couple times and helped it while it was pooping by sucking up and then spitting his poop away from him. I fed the nem last night and woke up to the 2 crabs and the one perc hang out helping the nem poop. Pretty cool stuff!
 
BigGimp77 said:
It seems strange to me that he would still shrivel up and expel brown stringy stuff 2-3 times a week when I'm only feeding once a week!
Click to expand...

That sounds more like zooxanthellae expulsion than poo from food. Unless you have been feeding it something brown. You haven't been feeding it chocolate have you?:spin2: :lmao: I would check lighting and try to figure out why it's discharging so many zooxanthellae.
 
Its a 37g tank with a 30 gallon sump.

All parameters are in check.

Water changes every weekend. 5 Gallons.



It just did it again this morning.

photosy.jpg


I could try and change my lighting around.

I currently have 2 10000's and one 420nm. I was eventually going to order 2 ATI blue plus and 1 GE 6500. My bulbs are only 4 months old though.

I will be setting up my new 120g tank in late October so I was trying to hold off until then before ordering new bulbs. However, if that is what the issue is, I wouldn't mind doing it early.
 
When was the last time you checked you parameters? My guess would be that nutrients are to high, and the zooxanthellae are reproducing to fast.
 
We added a new fish on Saturday (Royal Gamma). I did a all my test (Ph/Alk/Amm/Trite/Trate) Saturday morning before we went to the LFS. I checked my Amm/Nirtrite last night around 10PM to make sure the additional bio load didn't start a mini trite/amm spike. Amm/trite were 0. Trate is around 5-10. Alk is at 7. Ph is at 8.4.
 
He's still deflated. He's been deflated since I woke up until now. That's about 8 hours. Rarely is he deflated this long.
 
Do a series of water changes as people have suggested to you. This animal is clearly not happy. It should not be expelling zoox, nor deflating frequently. yes, your parms look good, but there are things we can't measure. I suggest running polyfilter, changing out your carbon, and doing a series of water changes.
 
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