FinzAquatics
New member
Hey Guys,
So I have had a mini carpet anemone in my seahorse tank for the entire duration of having my seahorses... Roughly 6 months now and have never had any issue with them coexisting...
Just 4 days ago, my wife and I were feeding the tank right before the lights go out at 9:00PM. It was approximately 8:55 leaving us with only about 5 minutes left to feed them and observe them eating for the day.. As we are watching our 3 larger Erectus eating like pigs, we begin to wonder where the juvenile seahorse is that we purchased about 2 weeks ago.. So I grab my flashlight and start looking around and another 3 minutes goes by and we cannot find the little guy..
With only 2 minutes left before the lights turn off for the evening... I FOUND IT. My juvenile seahorse was 3/4 the way eaten by my minicarpet anemone. My heart sunk as I thought it would be dead by this point as he was in the anemone for at least 5+ minutes while we were feeding and searching for the little guy. So I immediately dive into my tank (with one arm
) and begin to yank him out of the anemone, because at the very least im not going to allow the anemone to get to get the "taste" of seahorse for the sake of my other seahorses... The seahorses head was all the way into the anemones mouth and took quite the pull to remove it from the anemone..
Upon pulling him out, i'm amazed to find out that the seahorse was still alive.. I tried to let him swim around but he frantically twitches and falls to the sandbed lifelessly. I then immediately started building a specimen container to try to keep him in to prevent anyone from bothering him to allow him some chance to recover. He continued to twitch for about an hour while I jimmy rigged a specimen container and drilled holes into it to allow for water flow while in the tank... Once built I put him in the container with a handful of chaeto and caulerpa that I was sure had pods available for him..
I kept him in the container for two days and slowly watched his health improve to the point where he was exploring the container. Meanwhile over the course of this 2 days I waged war against this anemone. It was so deep into one of my base rocks that I had to carve out a chunk of my rock daily to avoid having to remove everything and disrupting my other seahorses. Finally I won the anemone war and have moved the anemone into my refugium until I can find it a new home.. All I know is that it is no longer a threat to any of my seahorses.
Once getting the anemone removed, I felt comfortable allowing the recovering seahorse back into the display.. Upon releasing him, he just sank to the bottom of my tank and took hold of one of my gorgonians with his face in the sand... I still felt terrible.. I tried feeding and he would only look at the food as his appetite was gone... This went on for a couple days
FINALLY!! Today he began eating and boy was he hungry.. He was slow to eat that first piece of Mysis, but after eating the first piece he began competing my other seahorses for every piece that came his way.. I was so glad to see this guy begin eating like his normal self.. For the remainder of the day he explored the entire tank and returned to his normal self by actively hunting in my macro algae that is available in my display.
I was 100% sure that there was no chance that a 2.5in seahorse could be removed from an anemone after being borderline eaten for 5 minutes and SURVIVE and act like it never happened by day 5.
So I have had a mini carpet anemone in my seahorse tank for the entire duration of having my seahorses... Roughly 6 months now and have never had any issue with them coexisting...
Just 4 days ago, my wife and I were feeding the tank right before the lights go out at 9:00PM. It was approximately 8:55 leaving us with only about 5 minutes left to feed them and observe them eating for the day.. As we are watching our 3 larger Erectus eating like pigs, we begin to wonder where the juvenile seahorse is that we purchased about 2 weeks ago.. So I grab my flashlight and start looking around and another 3 minutes goes by and we cannot find the little guy..
With only 2 minutes left before the lights turn off for the evening... I FOUND IT. My juvenile seahorse was 3/4 the way eaten by my minicarpet anemone. My heart sunk as I thought it would be dead by this point as he was in the anemone for at least 5+ minutes while we were feeding and searching for the little guy. So I immediately dive into my tank (with one arm
) and begin to yank him out of the anemone, because at the very least im not going to allow the anemone to get to get the "taste" of seahorse for the sake of my other seahorses... The seahorses head was all the way into the anemones mouth and took quite the pull to remove it from the anemone..Upon pulling him out, i'm amazed to find out that the seahorse was still alive.. I tried to let him swim around but he frantically twitches and falls to the sandbed lifelessly. I then immediately started building a specimen container to try to keep him in to prevent anyone from bothering him to allow him some chance to recover. He continued to twitch for about an hour while I jimmy rigged a specimen container and drilled holes into it to allow for water flow while in the tank... Once built I put him in the container with a handful of chaeto and caulerpa that I was sure had pods available for him..
I kept him in the container for two days and slowly watched his health improve to the point where he was exploring the container. Meanwhile over the course of this 2 days I waged war against this anemone. It was so deep into one of my base rocks that I had to carve out a chunk of my rock daily to avoid having to remove everything and disrupting my other seahorses. Finally I won the anemone war and have moved the anemone into my refugium until I can find it a new home.. All I know is that it is no longer a threat to any of my seahorses.
Once getting the anemone removed, I felt comfortable allowing the recovering seahorse back into the display.. Upon releasing him, he just sank to the bottom of my tank and took hold of one of my gorgonians with his face in the sand... I still felt terrible.. I tried feeding and he would only look at the food as his appetite was gone... This went on for a couple days
FINALLY!! Today he began eating and boy was he hungry.. He was slow to eat that first piece of Mysis, but after eating the first piece he began competing my other seahorses for every piece that came his way.. I was so glad to see this guy begin eating like his normal self.. For the remainder of the day he explored the entire tank and returned to his normal self by actively hunting in my macro algae that is available in my display.
I was 100% sure that there was no chance that a 2.5in seahorse could be removed from an anemone after being borderline eaten for 5 minutes and SURVIVE and act like it never happened by day 5.
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