Red Haddoni Help

T

Tango451

New member
Hi everyone,

I need advice/ opinions/ etc. as I am very distraught over my carpet anemone.

I would like to apologize for the long post, I am just worried so I am trying to be as detailed as possible. My main questions are at the bottom and before them is just what exactly is going on. I will get pics up soon.

Here's what happened:

I have had my red haddoni for seven years. I got him when he was about 2-3" and now he is over 16". He has been in the same spot and in the same tank for the last seven years. Last Friday at 5 am I walked by his tank (it was a 75) and I noticed three of my main fish were not where they usually were (i.e. his clarkii clown). I then turned on the lights and looked and found three of my fish ranging from 6 years old to 15 years old all dead in the same exact spot under a rock. This tank has been set up for over 10 years and has never once had a problem. So I panicked and quickly removed my carpet anemone from the sand (I was very careful not to damage any part of him esp. his foot and I got him out successfully).

I had a tank that I originally had planned on moving him to as well as my corals I had in another tank(a 180, with a 100 gallon sump, dual 450 watt mh etc). but I never got to it because I was scared of moving him.

So I acclimated him to my other tank (it has been set up for two years with only live sand and live rock, and a few fish used to live in it during that time) and got him in immediately.

Obviously he was stressed so being inflated (having his mouth not tightly closed) was normal. By the next day he didn't attach anywhere, so I placed him on a rock right under the halide and he attached himself to it. I then brought most of the rock from the tank he was in and put it in the tank I placed him in (trying to bring some of his old environment back to him).


The last week, his mouth has been inflated (its not gaping) but you can see the white and see a lot of it. He still maintains his shape 90% of the time. He has eaten 3 times (it is very strange as he does so while his mouth is puffed out and not closed). Two days ago, I introduced a pair of cinnamon clowns and they immediately took to him and have living in him. He also just ate today. I have the lights on 12 hours a day for him. (For the first few days I had the light on for 2 hours, then 4, then 6 etc. to acclimate him)

--------------------------------------------------------------
How long does it usually take for an anemone to acclimate and return to normal? (Usually I would expect it to be shorter than a week given water quality and lighting are great)

Why would he remain firmly attached to the rock and not move to the sand?

Does this means it is over for him?

Should I keep feeding him as long as he is eating?

I will post pics soon.

Any advice/ comment about his state is much appreciated. I have had him for too long to loose him like this :/
 
I'm sorry to read of your anemone situation. I had something similar with my mertens, but in my situation, my mertens walked into an MP40 and shredded a big chunk of itself, and THAT is what I believe released toxins that killed all my fish. I'm not sure why your fish would all be dead. Was your carpet looking bad before or after all your fish died? The pic you posted in the other thread, you're right, it doesn't look good.

Can we see a FTS of both the tank it came from, and the tank it's in now?

About the only encouraging thing I could say, is, at least you're not battling shipping stress. Typically, I've found, if you can get it clean and stable water, it may recover, but carpets can be really slow to recover. Months. Why did you remove it, did it look stressed, or was moving it a panic move out of fear? FTS please.
 
I do not think it was my carpet that killed my fish - he looked perfectly healthy, sticky, strong (like he always did) - the only thing was, his mouth was inflated a bit (prob cause I was draining the tank). I only moved him based on gut reaction and fear that if I left him in there something would happen to him because I have never lost fish like the way I lost the three let alone I have not lost a fish in many, many years. So I figured there was some spike or something going wrong in the 75 gal. 2 fish still survived and they are with the carpet in the new tank now.

No signs of stress/ issue with the carpet before I moved him. Unfortunately I cannot find pictures of him in his original 75 gallon (I will look for some tomorrow), but I have quite a few pics of what he has been doing in his tank and since I moved him which I will link below:

Here is right after I took him out of the 75 and placed him in a container to acclimate him to the new system: http://imgur.com/KkDhF5h

Here is after 1 day in the new tank after I placed him on a rock: http://imgur.com/KkDhF5h; http://imgur.com/Y1C4BIs;

1.5- 2 days: http://imgur.com/Jgwi3NJ; looking better here: http://imgur.com/v3yzrvQ; a little worse: http://imgur.com/UdG3Aqc;

Day 3-4: clownfish introduced: http://imgur.com/xV95sRN; http://imgur.com/H8MZcjf; looking better again: http://imgur.com/1HEny1S;

Today: Feeding him (tilapia fillet piece actual in his mouth- he put it there): http://imgur.com/4UryqOg; http://imgur.com/TMZ849x; http://imgur.com/Enq8fSC; the piece of fish is now all the way in his mouth: http://imgur.com/3wI82Ab; http://imgur.com/FJeTSKU (look in the right corner of his mouth for part of the tilapia); http://imgur.com/hfLCCj0

Tonight: http://imgur.com/sxWv4eM; http://imgur.com/6r3iYDh; http://imgur.com/bLMY14F; and the one I posted before: http://imgur.com/DYp8fmr

and sorry if this is a stupid question, but what does FTS mean?
Thank you so much for your response and my fingers are crossed he will get better and back to normal.
 
Your anemone is just all stressed out. I would recommend that you don't feed him until he is better. Just concentrate on keep the tank condition good and he should get better.
You need to find out, as much as you can, why to fish died. They don't died of old age all at the same time. Some thing in the tank, the water kill them. If you cannot find out, then you are at risk of doing it again. Clowns are hardy. It not going to be a minor thing, but something pretty drastic. Lack of Oxygen, Toxin (someone clean the surface of the tank with one of those ammonia base wipe....) BTW, both of these type of events would kill the fish but will leave the invertebrates relatively untouched.
Keep your water condition good and your anemone should recover.
 
Thank you so much. I will stop feeding him then until he looks better/ is better. Do you recommend me dosing any vitamins/ amino acids? Do you think I should at iodine/ lugol's solution to his current tank? And should I restrict flow (he is in a higher flow tank than he was before) or will he just move to where he is most comfortable?

Again sorry for all the questions, I just want to make sure I can do everything I can to keep him healthy and alive.

As for the death of the three fish, I still have no clue. What you say makes sense though since the inverts were fine. 2 fish did survive (an 8 year old damsel and a 3 year old true perc). And the strangest thing was I found the three of them dead on top of each other in the same spot. Could it be a dead zone in my tank (like there was a pocket with no oxygen etc). I have had those three fish forever and wish I could know what happened. I visually inspected them when I got them out of the tank and they had no visible injury and were swollen as per the stages after death.
 
I would not add anything in the tank that you cannot measure. Anemone does not need trace elements, vitamins, or amino acid as far as I can tell.
Haddoni does not like really high flow, but as long as his oral plate does not move with water movement, he should be fine with that level of water motion.

....2 fish did survive (an 8 year old damsel and a 3 year old true perc). And the strangest thing was I found the three of them dead on top of each other in the same spot....
Click to expand...

Were there 5 fishes in the tank and two survived and 3 died?
Clowns fish do not died as the result to someting put out by the anemone, but non clown fish does. A Magnifica got chew by the PH will wipe out non clownfish in the tank, but not the clowns. It seem that somehow clownfish got the anemone to think that clown fish is "self" so the nematocysts of the anemone does not fire on clown fish
 
Last edited:
Yes, there 5 in the tank and 3 died. The 3 that died were a squirrelfish, an albino scopus tang, and the clarki who was hosting the carpet. They were dead on the opposite end of the tank from the carpet.
 
And would you recommend for me to stop dosing my 2 part nature-reef (calcium, magnesium, etc) like I usually do until he looks better?
 
It is OK if you want to dose th e two part, however, you got to dose it slow.Sodium bicarb can really spike the pH of the tank. This is what cause the anemone not to do well. You have to slow drip it in similar to Kalk. If you have a pH monitor, you can really see it spike.
 
OrionN said:
It is OK if you want to dose th e two part, however, you got to dose it slow.Sodium bicarb can really spike the pH of the tank. This is what cause the anemone not to do well. You have to slow drip it in similar to Kalk. If you have a pH monitor, you can really see it spike.
Click to expand...


That is how I always do it. Checked pH and it is at a constant 8.1-8.2. I just turned off the halides (only a single blue light t5 is on) and as soon as I did he got ready to move (at least I think). His foot retracted a little (he was covering 60% of the rock, now its like 30%) and his clown looks like he is doing everything he can to have him not move. I am hoping he goes to the sand, buries his foot, and gets better. :p

I am debating to cut off flow in my tank while he is moving (you know to help him be able to find a spot to attach) but I am also worried if I do cut off flow, that he will go to a spot that he will not like when the flow is on. So what would you do? Turn off flow, or leave the tank be?

Thank you so much again for your answers/help- I truly appreciate it
 
I think it is OK if you slow PH down if you can and move the PH away from him if the appears to move. They always inflate their foot before they move.
 
It is hard to see from your picture.
Consider attach picture to RC. You can load picture up to 800X800. essentially the longest dimension is 800 pixels. You get fairly good resolution with this. If you want to sho the foot the just take picture of the foot (or cropped to the foot)
 
Oh i just realized it meant powerheads* I am too slow sometimes. I do not have any power heads, but I do have an over sized barracuda pump running my tank with flow coming two ways out of the top and from three ways through the bottom (left, middle, right). I cut flow coming from the bottom three to the minimum as of now
 
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