I Fragged My Carpet Last Night

About a week or so ago, I fed the remaining anemone a piece of shrimp or silverside(I don't remember which) and it hasn't been the same since. The next morning it was all shriveled and limp. It has been going back and forth since then. Last night I was half expecting to wake up to a pile of mush, but it is looking better again. The last two times I fed it, I placed a small piece of Formula 1 directly in its mouth. That seemed to perk it up the first time. I fed it tonight and I am hoping for the best. I have a feeling I gave it a bad piece of fish. :(
Wish me luck.
 
Good luck. I did the samething for one of my H. magnifica sometime back. I fed it a bad piece of clam and kill it. I hope your anemone will do much better.
 
I force fed my anemones a few times when there were no other options; I would have sold one of my kindney if that would help.

Phil, hope tomorrow is a better day for the anemone.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8308863#post8308863 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by phender
About a week or so ago, I fed the remaining anemone a piece of shrimp or silverside(I don't remember which) and it hasn't been the same since. The next morning it was all shriveled and limp. It has been going back and forth since then. Last night I was half expecting to wake up to a pile of mush, but it is looking better again. The last two times I fed it, I placed a small piece of Formula 1 directly in its mouth. That seemed to perk it up the first time. I fed it tonight and I am hoping for the best. I have a feeling I gave it a bad piece of fish. :(
Wish me luck.

:( Gosh I hope he survives.
 
Phender,
As a long time anemone afficianado, Ive been reading this thread with some interest....

So very sorry to ehar of your losses, both fish and anemone clone...

Nick
 
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I've heard recently that it is recommended that we feed anemones smaller foods than we are accustomed to--like no bigger than mysid shrimp. Maybe worth a try?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8309096#post8309096 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by skeeter-doc
I have always heard it is bad if you actually place food right into an anemone's mouth though , ...

In general this is true. You don't want to force feed an anemone, however sometimes you have to weigh your options. When an anemone is too weak to eat, but it needs food to survive, what do you do? There have been two or three times when I have been able to bring back anemones on the brink of death by placing food on the mouth and letting them bring it in or placing the food just inside the mouth. Forcing the food in is not a good idea. It usually gets spit back out anyway.

Certain host anemones have no trouble catching and eating prey larger than what we normally feed, but certainly feed on planktonic animals as well. BTAs and H. crispa, probably don't have a powerful enough sting to catch fish of any significant size in nature, so likely eat mostly planktonic animals.
That being said, it is much easier to keep track of the anemone's food intake when you feed fingernail sized food. It would be best to feed the tank and let the anemone catch all it needs, however when an anemone is new or ailing, it makes it diffecult to determine if the anemone is eating much or at all.
I have never had any species of anemone look like it didn't enjoy a large morsel of food every now and then.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8315210#post8315210 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by phender
In general this is true. You don't want to force feed an anemone, however sometimes you have to weigh your options. When an anemone is too weak to eat, but it needs food to survive, what do you do? There have been two or three times when I have been able to bring back anemones on the brink of death by placing food on the mouth and letting them bring it in or placing the food just inside the mouth. Forcing the food in is not a good idea. It usually gets spit back out anyway.

Phil, funny that you bring this up. I think I just saved a haddoni carpet this way. The carpet is literally flipping inside out with its mouth 3" fliped out, I decided it can't be worst, so I just literally stuff a piece of krill into its mouth, and it's back to normal now. Hopefully it lives :) It's a new arrival.
 
I hope your anemone pulls through. I fragged a red carpet in May. Both halves did great, were healing nicely and each was host to a true perc. They were both in separate sections of a 125 and did well for almost a month, both pretty much completely healed. I came in one morning and they were right next to each other, touching. The same day one started to shrivel up and "melt" away...then within a couple days the second was gone as well. Next time I will make sure I separate them as I really believe they would have made it if they hadn't gotten next to each other.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8348792#post8348792 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Me No Nemo
I hope your anemone pulls through. I fragged a red carpet in May. Both halves did great, were healing nicely and each was host to a true perc. They were both in separate sections of a 125 and did well for almost a month, both pretty much completely healed. I came in one morning and they were right next to each other, touching. The same day one started to shrivel up and "melt" away...then within a couple days the second was gone as well. Next time I will make sure I separate them as I really believe they would have made it if they hadn't gotten next to each other.


But they are replicas of each other so why would they have a negative effect on each other if they get to close? Were they competing for light?
 
About 10 days ago I put the anemone back in the basket that I can float at the top of the aquarium. I wanted to give it a little more flow, more light and keep the clown away from it for a little while. After about 3 days it was looking much better so I put it back in its normal spot. It seems to be doing very well again. I was feeding small portions of Formula 1 and Mysis directly in its mouth. Last night when I fed the tank mysis, it caught some and ate them by itself.
I need to get some good pics of the mouth. The mouth is healing from the base out to the edge. It now has a complete mouth and about an inch of new tissue on the side of the mouth that was originally cut. It is not easy to get a picture of the mouth because the anemone still has a swirl shape that usually hides the mouth.
 
Well, I was able to get a picture of the mouth today, showing the new growth. The growth seems to have come up and out from the column rather than in from the oral disk.
Here is a close up of the mouth. The mouth is the yellow tissue. There is a "hemorrhoid" around the mouth that develped as the mouth healed. The black circle is empty space that the anemone is filling in between the edges rather that the edges just healing together.
gMerten1mouth102606.jpg


Here is the same pic. The red outlines the new growth. The blue arrow is the mouth.
gDMerten1mouth102606.jpg


Here is the whole anemone. Sorry about the poor picture quality. The cut is at 3 o'clock.
gMerten1Nov2606.jpg

More good news is that the White-cap female is starting to tolerate the orange skunk male. It has taken a while, but at the rate they are going I suspect they will be sharing the anemone in a couple weeks. The male is from my breeding pair. The female jumped out of the tank a few months ago. They had been breeding for about 3 years straight.
I got the white-cap female in hopes that I could make a new pair. (They occur paired in nature quite often). Until recently she wouldn't even let him out of the rocks to eat. I had to hand feed him in his crevice. Now he eats right next to her and is able to swim quickly through the anemone without being bothered, but she won't let him linger too long at this point.
 
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