Losing my Ritteri

[WessB]

This thing has been happy and healthy for a good 6 months, staying put almost the entire time, fully open it was close to 12". Well for reasons unknown to me, it appears it may be dieing. It has retreated to the bottom of the tank behind the rockwork and does not look good AT ALL. My concern is about getting it out of the tank if and when I believe it has NO chance of survival. Will it release toxins or anything that will harm the fish or other corals? All my water test read dead on where the should be, and I have been doing 10% water changes for the last 2 days. I also have been changing the carbon every couple of days since things started looking bad 3 or 4 days ago. It will prove to be extremely difficult to get to where he is at right now if I have to remove him, I`m hoping he will continue to move and end up in a more accesible spot. Is it safe to just leave it in if it does die??? Thinking shrimp, crabs, and whatever else would consume it????
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, my pair of clowns is already acting stressed.... Thanks in advance.

Wess

 

[traveller7]

It would not be advisable to leave a larger anemone in a tank to decay....significant ammonia source at a minimum...other nastiness more likely.

IME, crabs and shrimp do not consume the remains after the first few hours of death.

 

[WessB]

Thanks for your advice, I am keeping a very close eye on it, it`s now about 3-4". It is still clinging on to the back wall of the tank, will it release it`s hold if it dies or just be kinda stuck to the wall? I do still see tentacles but it is obviously going downhill fast. The clowns aren`t completely avoiding it, but they would normally never leave it other than to eat, now they are staying away from it for the most part. It looks like I will be removing a major portion of my rockwork.......

Wess

 

[traveller7]

They can actually begin to decompose prior to falling off the substrate. Unfortunately, the result is not unusual with Ritteri(H. magnifica). I can only guess as to the causes.

 

[WessB]

We got conflicting stories relating to feeding it, so we didn`t target feed it very often, it seemed as though the clowns would take food from it when we did. Could be the reason.....Secondly, I recently added a Seio 1100 and it was stirring up the sandbed pretty deep in 1 spot, might have stirred up some bad stuff from low in the DSB. I have got it in a "frag tray" I made and think by tom. I will know wether he stays or goes....It doesn`t look promisisng.....Thanks for all you responses.

Wess