Please help with Carpet and clown.

[lpsouth1978]

I was talking with a fellow reefer today who was breaking down his tank and offered to give me this carpet anemone. My tank is still fairly young (~5 months), but has been staying quite stable and everything in it has been doing very well, including a rainbow BTA. I decided to get it and will re-home it when it gets too big for my tank (if I don't have a larger tank by then).

The nem looks good, for the most part, it has great color, is very sticky, but the mouth is not as tight as I would like. He fed it while I was there and it is VERY sticky! After getting it home and acclimating it to my tank, I placed it in a little cove and it attached itself almost immediately. It is now open nicely and seems to be enjoying it's new home.

This is where the help is needed. I was told that this was a haddoni, but I am not sure. I am not positive that you all can help id without a pic of the base and foot, but any info would be helpful. The reason I am questioning it is because it does not have it's food buried in the sand, but is on a flat surface on the rock.

The other issue is with my clowns. I did not expect them to immediately take to the nam, since they are tank raised and ignore my BTA. My female Black Ocellaris seemed curious and went to check it out. Unfortunately, it seems that she was not prepared for this thing and it tried to eat her. Luckily I was able to rescue her gently and quickly. Now she has a bunch of white sores on her side where she was stuck to the nem. This was a couple of hours ago and she seems to be doing fine except for the marks.

Will she be ok and will the marks go away eventually? Now she wont even go to that side of the tank right now, which is ok with me.

20180817_204812 by Lyle Southard, on Flickr

20180817_205157 by Lyle Southard, on Flickr

 

[Cancun]

I was talking with a fellow reefer today who was breaking down his tank and offered to give me this carpet anemone. My tank is still fairly young (~5 months), but has been staying quite stable and everything in it has been doing very well, including a rainbow BTA. I decided to get it and will re-home it when it gets too big for my tank (if I don't have a larger tank by then).

The nem looks good, for the most part, it has great color, is very sticky, but the mouth is not as tight as I would like. He fed it while I was there and it is VERY sticky! After getting it home and acclimating it to my tank, I placed it in a little cove and it attached itself almost immediately. It is now open nicely and seems to be enjoying it's new home.

This is where the help is needed. I was told that this was a haddoni, but I am not sure. I am not positive that you all can help id without a pic of the base and foot, but any info would be helpful. The reason I am questioning it is because it does not have it's food buried in the sand, but is on a flat surface on the rock.

The other issue is with my clowns. I did not expect them to immediately take to the nam, since they are tank raised and ignore my BTA. My female Black Ocellaris seemed curious and went to check it out. Unfortunately, it seems that she was not prepared for this thing and it tried to eat her. Luckily I was able to rescue her gently and quickly. Now she has a bunch of white sores on her side where she was stuck to the nem. This was a couple of hours ago and she seems to be doing fine except for the marks.

Will she be ok and will the marks go away eventually? Now she wont even go to that side of the tank right now, which is ok with me.

20180817_204812 by Lyle Southard, on Flickr

20180817_205157 by Lyle Southard, on Flickr

The nem looks good to me, it also looks like a S. Haddoni. But it is a little hard to tell from the picture. I have a blue haddoni that is large, but his foot is attached to the bottom glass.....I know that the Stichodactyla gigantea can attach his foot to a rock though. Also the tentacles are longer on gigantea then haddoni. Gigantea looks more like shag carpet.

As far as your clown he most likely will be ok. Just keep a eye on him, make sure he eats etc. Also keep a eye out for secondary infection because of his sores from getting stung. In my experience I had a Wrasse swim into my carpet nem, I rescued it right away, but he died in a matter of a minute or two from the sting. So your clown should be just fine. I don't keep clowns any more (got tired of my hands getting bit all the time LOL) and they would host both my bta and carpet.

Sent from my MHA-L29 using Tapatalk

 

[garygb]

Yes, the anemone is S. haddoni. My guess is the clown will be okay from the run-in with the haddoni. However, there is a risk the haddoni will eat the clown if the clown returns again. That species of clown isn't found naturally with haddoni. As far as I know, haddoni is the only host anemone that will actually eat a clown, and I don't think it happens frequently, but it does occasionally.

 

[lpsouth1978]

Yes, the anemone is S. haddoni. My guess is the clown will be okay from the run-in with the haddoni. However, there is a risk the haddoni will eat the clown if the clown returns again. That species of clown isn't found naturally with haddoni. As far as I know, haddoni is the only host anemone that will actually eat a clown, and I don't think it happens frequently, but it does occasionally.

The clown is doing great, and shows no signs of her run in with the haddoni. She pretty much avoids the side fof the tank where the nem is, but is otherwise unphased.

I thought that the Haddoni was a natural host to Ocellaris. There are a number of sources that I have seen stating that this is a natural pairing. Here is one such reference:

https://www.fishlore.com/clownfishanemonechart.htm

 

[Uncle99]

Carpets are quite viscous.
I have never seen a clown attacked like that from any nem, there slime coat should have protected, just find that odd.
Any other fish which venture to close will be lunch.
Beware.

 

[mnchartier]

The clown is doing great, and shows no signs of her run in with the haddoni. She pretty much avoids the side fof the tank where the nem is, but is otherwise unphased.

I thought that the Haddoni was a natural host to Ocellaris. There are a number of sources that I have seen stating that this is a natural pairing. Here is one such reference:

https://www.fishlore.com/clownfishanemonechart.htm

That chart says compatible not natural host. Yes Ocellaris and Percula can take to haddoni but its not a natural pairing, just like they have both of those listed with BTA (happens in our tanks but not a natural pairing).

 

[garygb]

Yeah, not a natural host. Fautin and Allen are the go-to guide for natural pairings. Even they have one pairing that is questionable, H. crispa and A. percula--I still haven't seen a reference photo in the wild where an H. crispa was hosting a perc. But otherwise, I think their lists are very accurate.

 

[lpsouth1978]

Thanks for all the help guys!

Everything is doing great. The clown has fully recovered and n longer avoids that side of the tank, though she has not ventured near the anemone since her previous encounter.

The anemone finally moved off of the rock and buried its foot deep beneath it on the sand. It's mouth is closed nice and tight and it seems quite content. Hopefully it continues to stay happy in it's new home.

 

[garygb]

Glad to hear the anemone dug in. Haddoni are generally considered one of the hardier host species. If you feed it regularly, it will grow to an impressive size. They can be fish eaters, more so than any other host anemone species, but can make a life-long pet for you that is very interesting as will.

 

[davocean]

This is what can happen if a clown has not adapted to nems sting cells, especially hadonni which not natural but also can have a stronger sting.
It could possibly adapt over time, maybe....but it could also get stung again or worse, hard to say what you should do, but if really attached to clown I'd block off w/ eggcrate till you can rehome hadonni.

Shows your clown still has instinct for wanting a host, tank bred makes no difference, just needs right one

 

[gaby_scan]

Looks pretty nice that anemone, but be carefull with the fish inside the tank, i had a beautifull lemonpeel angelfish that one day disspeared, i kept looking for it and after a while of looking i notice my carpet ate him, apparently he went to close. No more carpets for me

 

[lpsouth1978]

Looks pretty nice that anemone, but be carefull with the fish inside the tank, i had a beautifull lemonpeel angelfish that one day disspeared, i kept looking for it and after a while of looking i notice my carpet ate him, apparently he went to close. No more carpets for me

Yup, I have lost a few fish to past carpets, but they have been few. So far everything keeps it's distance from this one though. The clowns however, seem to be interested in it. I constantly see them hovering vertically about an inch above the nem. Neither of them have tried to venture into it, but both show A LOT of interest in it.

As for the nem, it is doing very well! it has now been in the system for 2 weeks and is open nicely, with a nice tight mouth. Here is a pic I took this morning with the blue LED's off.

20180831_065147 by Lyle Southard, on Flickr

 

[CoralsAddiction]

Yeah, not a natural host. Fautin and Allen are the go-to guide for natural pairings. Even they have one pairing that is questionable, H. crispa and A. percula--I still haven't seen a reference photo in the wild where an H. crispa was hosting a perc. But otherwise, I think their lists are very accurate.

Yes, that book needs some updating.
They list H. Crispa as the exclusive host for A. Latezonatus.
Based on some diving videos from Youtube user Liquidg Marine life, more often than not Latz clowns are found in BTAs.
Overall, it's a nice introductory guide to clownfishes and anemones.

 

[lpsouth1978]

The Green Haddoni has been in the tank for almost a month now, and things seem to be going pretty well with the Carpet. It has not moved from it's original spot, is VERY sticky, mouth is always nice and tight, and has a great feeding response. The one thing that I have noticed over the last week or so is that it is nice and open at night, but spends much of the day kind of folded up. It has never deflated or gaped, just folds up a bit.

You can see in the first pic that it is sort of folded up on itself. The second pic is about 30 minutes later, and it has begun to open up a bit more again. Is this something that I should be concerned about, or is this pretty normal behavior? If this is problematic, what steps would you recommend I take?

20180909_102600 by Lyle Southard, on Flickr

20180909_125605 by Lyle Southard, on Flickr

 

[pfan151]

Looks good. How deep is your sandbed? I usually see them more spread out when they have a deeper sandbed.

 

[lpsouth1978]

Looks good. How deep is your sandbed? I usually see them more spread out when they have a deeper sandbed.

The sandbed is about 2.5" and the carpet has it's foot lodged about 4" back under that rock. Sound like this is nothing to be too concerned with, but I will continue to monitor it closely.

 

[lpsouth1978]

oops, double post.