roaming sebae anemone

MotorCityBadBoy

New member
My purple tip sebae moves everyday. Metal halide turns on...he comes out...Halides go off he goes back behind the rock. Is this normal? he stays in the sand. Doesnt even come close to climbing any rock. I got him early , befor the coral so he could get settled. I hope moving everyday with the lights isn't his idea of setteling? Thanks in advance! Oh by the way, ive had him for about 8days?
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First, off all, unfortuneatly like a lot of the Sebaes that are available, that is a BLEACHED anemone, in that, it has lost all of the pigmentation in the tissues in the tentacles.

A bleached anemone is NOT a healthy anemone and your current mission should be feeding. With a turkey baster and some mysis or small chunks of shrimp meat, you should be trying to get it to eat.

The movement with the lights is not really that much of a problem, anemeones will move themselves to where, and when they need too. It could be that it is just extending towards the light during the day to receive the maxium amount of sunlight for the symbiotic photo cells in the tissues.
 
looks like you have an Anemone crab in there with it? the above is sadly true as mine is half brown and half white now. he does float around a small space in the corner of the tank now and will not accept any food even when placed in its mouth. I think the pink skunk we just got may get him to start eating
 
bleached...

bleached...

How often should I feed him? i put food in the tank every third day. I would not say just yet that his tentacles are bleached..... Bleached means no color...the camera is a phone picture ....not perfect Reefman.... Yup thats an anemone crab in there also ds4x4. Thanks for the info guys! I'll get right on it.
 
Feeding small pieces (pencil eraser sized) of shrimp, clam, squid, scallop, tuna, or any other seafood is good. I'd feed him twice a week. It looks like he has some color, and not totally white, so he should be able to recover. Provide good, clean water, and keep up with the parameters, and he should be alright.
 
I just read over my post again, sorry, I am sometimes a little too blunt with this stuff :rolleyes:

Yeah, I mean, not like to yell at you, I mean it is not your fault, these things come in bleached and then are sold as "white" anemones...but anyway...

Nirvana put it well, little bits of food right at the anemone preferably holding it right up close to a tentacle so it can grab on to it. If it doesn't grab put it right by the mouth and hold it for a while so it can grab it.

Once it gets some of its color back I wouldn't be too surprised to see it become more consistent with its placement in the tank.

HTH :)
 
Lets just call it "tough love" Reefman. I'll start using the turkey baster method today. I'll post a pic again in a week or so to get some more feed back... Thanks again for all the awsome advise!
 
These guys are sand anemones, thus they will not climb on to your rock. Light out they come out for the light and light off they close up somewhat to protect from nibbling fish is OK. Normally, my anemone does not open as much at night.
As long as they don't move to somewhere else in the tank, they should be reasonably happy.
BTW, anemones are more dificult to keep and not for new tank. Since you got the anemone first before the coral, I assume that it is in a fairly new tank. This does not bold well for this anemone. Goodluck
 
I used the turkey baster method today to try and rescue my Sebae...I managed to get some decent sized pieces of krill to him...But i noticed that the anemone crab hoarded all the food. he kinda just collected it all up...pulling the krill from the anemone. The anemone got some but the crab got the lions share!!!???!@#$%^
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my Sabae was loose in the current but last night the true Percs were laying in it and today it was reattached so maybe they don't like being alone lol but your on the right track
 
I have false percs farm raised and thus far won't even consider going next to the anemone...Even if they did i have the feeling that the anemone crab would run them off..By the way after the feeding I expected the anemone to retreat back behind the rocks...However he didnt...Needless 2 say...That's a FIRST! Hopefully he ll kinda stay put?????.
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Nem is a little bleached, but I've seen worse, and it seems pretty common they ship that way.
Should get better.
8 days old, just settling in.
Depth of tank/what light?
They do like strong light.
Most clowns will deal w/ nem crab just fine, however those occs may take a long time to gain interest, and may never enter nem.
 
the only way my true percs even got near my sabae was b/c of the pink skunk i added and there are no problems since most aggression is between fish that look similar and they look nothing alike .. when the skunk isn't sleeping in the sabae the perc (s) are
 
150w or 250w?
Even the 150 is prob enough.
Is it getting blasted by flow?
At 8 days I would expect some movement till it finds it's happy place, maybe just give time.
Don't worry about food so much yet, light is main source of energy.
 
Hi MotorCityBadboy

I bought a badly bleached Sabae Anemone too. Made a newbie mistake and didn't research it enough first. It was pretty touch and go for a while after I bought it and there were several times I thought it was going to die. It took quite a while (couple months) before it would take any food. It had no feeding response at all for weeks. I was really patient and kept the water quality up and kept trying to feed it and it finally started eating. It now eats really well. I feed it small chunks of silverside, krill or mysis, twice a week. It never roamed in my tank. At first, it wouldn't attach, and I had to find a spot where it had less flow between two rock structures in my tank, and then it attached. You can see in first picture below, the day I brought it home 13 months ago, that it was on the sandbed, and badly bleached. It then attached to the rock, and has stayed off the sandbed for the past year (see 2nd picture below). You can see how much it darkened. I then went through a 3 day power outage in the big ice storm in the NorthEast, in December. For the first time since I had put the Sabae in my tank a year earlier, it moved from it's spot. The tank got down to 58 degrees, and because my Sabae had never moved, I assumed it had died during the power outage, and had dissolved in the tank. I finally found the anemone, all shrunken up in the back under the rock. Once I got power back and got the tank up to normal temps, I waited a few days and then pointed a powerhead at the Sabae hoping he'd move from hiding behind the rock. He did move out, and moved back to the same area between the two rock structures, where he had been in for a year, but attached high up on the rock. He's been there for the past 2 months since the power outage, and looks beautiful and happy (see the 3rd pic). You can see how high he is off the sandbed now. He's now facing the ceiling instead of the front of the tank and you can see his foot attached to the rock in the 3rd pic. If anyone is wondering if he's higher because he's not getting enough light.... I have a Elos Planet light fixture with a 150watt MH bulb and 4 T5's over the tank (19" deep). Bulbs are all new within the past 2 or 3 months. Good luck with your Nem !! :) Pam

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