Is this normal?

[Cody Ray]

I just got a long tentacle/corkscrew anemone a couple of hours ago. So far it has found itself a nice crevice in the dead center of the aquarium (very cool) and is fully expanded. However, I have noticed that it will deflate and reinflate some of it's tentacles. They turn into strings, then reinflate within a couple minutes. Is this just it's way of adjusting to the new salinity, or is this abnormal? It looked very healthy at the lfs, and there are no visible tears to the foot, disk, or any of the tentacles. The foot is orange, and the disk and tentacles are a creamy green with green tips.

Pictures

 

[traveller7]

Sounds fairly normal at this stage. Lots of changes in the water composition when going tank to tank.

It looks a bit light in color, hopefully it darkens up fairly quickly. Have you read up on appropriate meaty foods, quantity, and frequency?

May it be your show piece for many years

 

[rickyfins]

NORMAL, they do this to exchange water from within to the tank water you now have. they also do this at night, they get really tiny sometimes.

thanks,

rick

 

[Cody Ray]

It looks a bit light in color, hopefully it darkens up fairly quickly. Have you read up on appropriate meaty foods, quantity, and frequency?

The color is off on my camera, if only you could see it in person! The base of the tentacles is almost purple, then tapper into a tan color, and are green tipped.

As for food, I have looked through Joyce D. Wilkerson's book on clowns, it has an awsome section of clown-hosting anemonies. After identifying it as Marcodactyla doreensis, I moved some of the rock in the center and added some more sand, that way it could bury it's foot. At first I thought it might be Heteractis crispa, however it had white lines radiating from the mouth and warts on the column, which is what is listed under Marcodactyla doreensis.

According to Phil Henderson (reference from book) they prefer fish to crustacean meat, so tomorrow I am going to pick up some silverside and lancefish, along with some more sand to add around the anemone, I want to make sure that it has the ability to move in this general area just in case it later finds the area inhospitable. It never said how often or how much to feed, so I think an inch long piece one a week is a good start, what do you think?

 

[rickyfins]

Food size is important, being a bottom dweller or reef dweller, it will not completly eat a whole silverside. Try and understand that most food that reaches the reef are after all the bigger fish, and critters got their bites out of it. Most of the items that make it to the reef are around the size of a pea. A little larger(maybe), anything bigger than that, and the anenome will expel it and foul your water.

thanks

rick