You have to give it time. I bought a bleached malu sebae without knowing they can be bleached and it was a roller coaster of concern for the first weeks.
I put it on a rock near the bottom of the tank and clownfish (false perculas) immediately started fighting over it with the most dominant largest one too big for small anemone. It looked attached and stayed in place for a day then detached and was upside down in the sand. I turned it over and put it in sand next to rock at the sand out of direct current but it kept blowing around with foot side up. I put a small rock on one side to stop it from blowing around in current and seemed ok for a few days but I thought it was a goner because I could tell it wasnt attaching to anything and didnt appear sticky. I tried to feed it and the food just layed there on top until a fish ate it. Poor thing was deflated and miserable but I did weekly water changes hoping nice clean fresh high quality saltwater would help.
I built up sandbed in back rear of tank under the return pipes where there in min movement, buried a rock and moved it again. I didnt wedge it in but it had an inch of sand and a rock buried and sticking out on both sides. I moved the largest clowns to QT for a week and put krill on it near middle and covered with two nets to keep fish out and then turned up the wavemakers until I saw the tentacles in some movement. He finally ate the krill and is very slow to move it and eat but it worked and he attached and stayed.
Everyday I offer food and cover with nets barring a shrimp or fish from stealing. I offer thawed from frozen krill, mysis, blood worms, squirt some 50/50 etc and although a very slow eater he eats sometimes. After he eats I pull the nets and the clowns check for food so you have to wait until he truly has closed his mouth.
Its been about 6-7 total weeks so far and I feel like hes doing better because he buried his foot, no longer looks wobbly and is inflated most of the time. I bought a small green heteractis and I feed him too and put in similar spot on other side of 6' tank. He was bothered by shrimp so moved the rock he attched to place him about 2-3 inches from sand floor.
Under same conditions the green is getting bigger and snatchs up food like starving. The clowns ignore the green and clowns like the malu for some reason.
I had nitrates at 20 to 40ppm with 0 in nitrites and no ammonia...440 calcium, 1.24-1.24 salinity, 8.1-8.2 ph, trace of phosphate and 79 degrees stable. I did 25g water changes weekly in a 120g and nitrates lowered to under 10 and when he planted foot I checked frequently on measurements and only changed water when nitrates rise...like 10 days or so. I also run skimmer wet pulling out concentrated green water from skimmer every few days and replacing with salt water and or ro monitoring to keep exact salinity same. I also keep the micro filter sock changed every 3 days...100micron and appears to help keep good levels. I also removed extra carbon filter pads and went with chemi-pure elite media filter bag only.
So far I'm seeing improvement. I'm not giving up. Maybe adjusting and improving conditions and feed him and be patient and he'll get better like mine. The lighting is an issue for me and I'm changing from coralife aqualights and moving to radion xr30w pros. I run my lights 8 hours day and rest of time nightlights. I dont know if lights are too bright or not or if I need to put them on longer but everything else is growing and improving so I feel like the main issue was a bleached malu trying to adjust and recover from poor conditions.
I have fingers crossed for your anemone. Just do the best you can on conditions and give some time. I hope your anemone improves. I didn't give it back to lfs cause I thought he would not survive another move to lfs and then sold to another unsuspecting customer...better to hang in there and give it best conditions possible. Good Luck.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I527 using Tapatalk
