Sick bubble tip anemone I kept in the tank for 2 years

[pszemol]

I had a healthy anemone for more than 2 years now, it was expanding so much
it occupied 2/3 of hight of my tank. It quickly become a centerpiece in the tank.

I had constant problems with hair algae and red/brown cyanobacteria due
to the overcrowding the tank with fish and recently I started to fight with
this problem with a frequent large water changes to bring the nutrients down...
One time I used very small amount (under dose) of phosban to bring the
phospates down a little...

In the meantime my actinic lamp broke, did not have time to fix it or buy
new one so the tank was under 1/2 light intensity compared to normal...
Also, the only light source was 10000K white tube, no actinic blue.

Other than that, I lost pink sea cucumber (filter feeder one) and I did not
noticed this, so unintentionally I let it decompose between the rocks :-(

Unfortunatelly a lot of changes happened to my tank in the last couple
of months and my tank lost its ballance. Now I have no red cyanobacteria
but the tank is overwhelmed with brown single-cell algae growing everywhere.
Checked the algae under the microsocope and to my surprise the cells are
round and motile. Do not have better microscope to allow identification.

My invertebrates are sick. Pompom Xenia is almost gone. Reduced to white
dots on the rock - almost nothing left. Green and brown button polyps
are shrunk and do not look healthy. The biggest issue I see with the anemone.
My bubble tip, which was the center piece and my pride for so long is
now reduced to about 1/5 of its fully-pumped size and does not accept food.
Clownfish are still hugging it, nurture it, bring food to its tentacles
but the anemone is passive. It does go throught the cycles of being larger
and smaller - it seems to open its oral opening during feeding, but its
tentales do not fire and the food does not stick to its body...

I am worried I could lose it and I am not sure how to help.

I am scared of toxins after the sea cucumber decomposing (I read they
can wipe out the tank when they die...) so I continue doing water changes
but this moves my tank way more out of ballance and the brown motile algae
seems not disouraged. I detect no nitrates now with my test kits, little phosphates (less than <0.5mg/l).
The salnity and calcium is normal (34ppt, 400mg/l).

I am affraid I have conflicting goals to achive now: I want to dilute
toxins from decomposing cucumber, but I do not want to dilute nutrients
for the soft corals. Am I correct I am causing more harm to the anemone
diluting nitrates and phosphates or they do just fine in low-nutrients
environment? How quicly anemone can adjust its metabolism from high-nutrients to low-nutrients environment ? I do not see any signs of bleaching yet on mine but not accepting food worries me a lot.

Please help!

Thank you.

 

[greenbean36191]

There is no need to worry about lowering nutrients so low via waterchanges that your soft corals and anemones die. It's not going to happen. The anemone will adjust to low nutrients as quickly as you can get them low. As long as the anemone has only been without food a few days and the mouth isn't gaping I wouldn't worry yet. Under sufficient light an otherwise healthy anemone can go a long time without eating.

 

[pszemol]

It is not "only couple of days without food".

I have not beed feeding it frequently and it was not rare I left it without direct feeding for a month. During this time it was only under tender care of the pair of maroon clowns and light energery.
It looked healthy and grew fast so the regime proved right.
So the animal is used to long periods without food and it was always ready to accept food when fed.

These recent problems with anemone not expanding fully last over two weeks now. And they are consistent with the bulb failure and cucumber disapearance. During this time I have not seen this animal taking *any* food, even when the maroons tried to feed it. This is not normal at all.
Since this is not a new purchase (I have this animal for over two years) I know for sure something is seriously wrong with it.

I am quite desperate in looking for reason for its illness.

I am happy to hear low-nutriens are not the reason to be worried - I will continue frequent water changes to get rid of toxins.

I wish to know what dr Shimek has to add in the subject.

Thank you for help.

 

[rshimek]

Hi,

From your description, the brown algae in your tank are likely a group of dinoflagellates. Many of these produce toxins that will affect - and sometimes kill - other animals. This is likely the source of your problem; most cucumber toxins are vertebrate specific. If your fish survived you have nothing to worry about in that regard, and in addition such toxins are rapidly biodegradable, and disappear from the system in short order.

You need to reduce the dissolved nutrient levels in the tank to bring the algae under control, and you probably need to be feeding the anemone as well. If the light has been reduced it is getting a lot less nutrition from its zoox than it was. In addition to everything else, it is likely starving. As it is not feeding, the first order of business is to get the water and lighting conditions to its liking. The salinity is a bit low, it should be on the order of 35 to 36 ppt. Low salinity such as this favors the growth of problem algae as well as stresses the anemone (and other animals).

Until the anemone starts feeding, you really, seriously, need to get a handle on the toxin/nutrient levels and the best way to do this is a series of water changes where you siphon out or remove as much of the algal growth as you can.

 

[pszemol]

Thank you for your response. I had no idea cucumber toxins are vertebrate specific and this lack of knowledge influenced my way of thinking... Now thanks to you I am smarter Thanks!

Do you think this invasion of dinoflagellates is related to my cyanobacteria disappearance after using phosban?

So if I understood you correctly I need to continue doing water changes untill brown algae will disapear. My routie recently is to change 18 gallons from my 30 gallon tank with a 10 gallon sump. Is this not too much water change at once ? Is there anything else I can do to inhibit this algae growth without affecting other photosynthesing living beings?

Also, is there any way to force-feed anemone ? I noticed complete passivnes of its tentacles. They do not fire at food at all.
In this stage I do not think feeding it is possible, even while I see its oral opening reacts bulging when I feed the fish or touch anemone with food in hope it will stick to it. The food does not stick to ti, but the oral opening seems to react. Is it possible to squirt some unthawed brine shrimps or something similar directly into its oral opening with a turkey baster? Or this would do more harm than good ?
How about a different aproach - moving anemone to a healthy tank/quarantine ? Not sure where I would move it yet, but maybe I would figure something up...

I would not be happy losing this anemone - please help!

p.s.
Do you think this recent invasion of dinoflagellates is related to my cyanobacteria disappearance after using "phosban"?

 

[rshimek]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6235597#post6235597 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by pszemol

Hi,

Do you think this invasion of dinoflagellates is related to my cyanobacteria disappearance after using phosban?

Absolutely. The nutrients are present. They will be utilized by something. Generally, in our systems cyanobacteria are the dominant competitors for this resource. By removing them, you "opened the door," so to speak for he dinoflagellates.

So if I understood you correctly I need to continue doing water changes untill brown algae will disapear.

Yes, and then some. You need to remove the nutrient load from the tank. This may involve other methods as well; increased skimming, growing other algae for biomass export, etc.

My routie recently is to change 18 gallons from my 30 gallon tank with a 10 gallon sump. Is this not too much water change at once ?

No. Personally, I would take out as much as I could.

Is there anything else I can do to inhibit this algae growth without affecting other photosynthesing living beings?

Skimming well and growing other algae which would use up the nutrients.

Also, is there any way to force-feed anemone ?

Nope.

How about a different aproach - moving anemone to a healthy tank/quarantine ?

Yes, this may indeed work. If the environment is causing the problem, changing the environment may cure it.

 

[pszemol]

Thank you again for your help.

Two more questions popped up in my confused head...

1. Would activated carbon help in removal of dinoflagellate-produced toxins?

2. I still have quite significant level of phosphates. I cannot do any more intensive water changes due to the size of my R/O filter but maybe I should continue removal of phosphates using "Phosban" or similar methods?

I am still feeling strange and confused removing all the nutrients from the water column. I know that anemone needs nutrients in water for its internal algae... My normal tank conditions from before this disaster were very high nutrients level and the anemone, ricordia mushrooms, xenias were growing like weeds. I had problems with the tank appearance due to the green hair algae and red cyanobacteria but the corals were doing excellent. Since I started playing with "improving water parameters" my corals are dying, Xenia is gone, ricordia is almost gone and anemone is sick...
But I trust you guys and knowing that the dinoflagellates toxins are my biggest enemy right now I will continue my water changes even if I had to loose xenia, ricordias and other corals to save my beautiful centerpiece anemone

 

[pszemol]

Yesterday I change water again.
Brown stuff seems to be going away a little but it is still visible.
Still creating a lot of oxygen exposed to the light and pieces bubble exactly like cyanobacteria does...


This morning I tried to feed my sick anemone again since I noticed it looked better than recently... Light were still out.

I have defrosted some amount of frozen plankton from Sanfrancisco Bay (very small pieces of crustacean planktonic creatures ~1/8-1/4") and squirt it into the tentacles of anemone with a turkey baster. As expected, sick anemone did not accept the food, tentacles harpoons did not fire and the food did not stick to its body. Sleepy fish picked up the food, gladly... There was nothing left for the anemone to eat.

I have noticed again that "mouth" (oral opening) expanded towards the edge of the oral disk where the food touched it. There was no food there so the mouth did not pick anything... I decided to try something I planed before: spoon feed it. I picked up one small planktonic crustacean with a twizers and placed it in one of the grooves of the still expanded mouth. The food piece was very, very tiny but it stuck to the mucus. It was dangling there for a minute or two and I watched it afraid fish will pick it up or just blow it away with fins. Fortunatelly nothing like this happened - anemone slowly contracted the food piece in between ist mouth growes... It slowly disappeared inside it. I conclude anemone has eaten it.

I will try to repeat this with larger piece of crustacean, maybe defrost some of the krill - maybe it will eat bigger piece and slowly recover this way from its sickness...

Lets see what happens next. I hope my anemone recovers to the point it will be able to hunt his own food instead of relying on spoon feeding...

 

[rshimek]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6236036#post6236036 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by pszemol

Hi,

1. Would activated carbon help in removal of dinoflagellate-produced toxins?

Possibly. Water changes are better and faster, though.

2. I still have quite significant level of phosphates. I cannot do any more intensive water changes due to the size of my R/O filter but maybe I should continue removal of phosphates using "Phosban" or similar methods?

That may help.

I am still feeling strange and confused removing all the nutrients from the water column. I know that anemone needs nutrients in water for its internal algae...

No, the anemone needs to feed. All the nutrients for the algae must pass through the anemone and come from the food that the anemone has eaten. Nutrients in the water are due to excess animal wastes, see here, or they are due to food that has been incompletely utilized and which has decomposed into the tank. That latter material must be continually exported or it continually accumulates; see here.

My normal tank conditions from before this disaster were very high nutrients level and the anemone, ricordia mushrooms, xenias were growing like weeds.

They were using the nutrient in water only indirectly. They can absorbsome small amount of those nutrients, but most of those nutrient were going to fuel bacterial growth. Small bacterial aggregates were likely the fuel for most of the growth you saw.

I trust you guys and knowing that the dinoflagellates toxins are my biggest enemy right now

No, the major problem right now is the overaccumulation of nutrients in your system. That has fostered the abnormal growth of dinoflagellates and that, in turn, has caused some of the problems.

Still creating a lot of oxygen exposed to the light and pieces bubble exactly like cyanobacteria does...

Surprise, surprise ??? This is called photosynthesis. It will happen from all algae in the light.

As expected, sick anemone did not accept the food

Probably because this not the kind of food that these anemones normally eat; see this article for more information on anemone care.

... It slowly disappeared inside it. I conclude anemone has eaten it.

That is absolutely the wrong conclusion. It simply was caught in the mucus that moves inside the animal in the water currents that flush the gut of the anemone. The small particle would be ejected some time later.

 

[pszemol]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6257693#post6257693 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rshimek
As expected, sick anemone did not accept the food

Probably because this not the kind of food that these anemones normally eat; see this article for more information on anemone care.

... It slowly disappeared inside it. I conclude anemone has eaten it.

That is absolutely the wrong conclusion. It simply was caught in the mucus that moves inside the animal in the water currents that flush the gut of the anemone. The small particle would be ejected some time later. [/B]

Thank you for your responses.
I cut the quotation to only leave two subjects I want to ask additional questions, if you don't mind:

Not appropriate food.
Well... during these 2 years I fed it krill and other defrosted ocean planktonic crustaceans (also adult artemia) it looked to me like it likes this food and this is the proper food for my anemone.
Now, it is not eating the food it liked so much before, and this is why I am concluding it is sick.

What could be other reason for anemone not firing its nematocysts? And would this condition return to normal over time or once it is lost it is lost forever?

Wrong conclusion about the food disappearing.
How do I recognize the food was "rejected" not eaten from the regular egestion ?

Also, assuming I use appropriate food (tested for over 2 years to its liking) can I continue feeding my anemone this way and expect it to use the food at least partiarly as its energy source ?

BTW - Previously I was not surprised with the oxygen production alone because I know it is produced during photosyntesis... I was rather refering to the phenomenon of capturing this oxygen bubbles in the network of algal cells, which is similar to what happens in case of cyanobacteria and does not happen for briopsis or for example.

 

[rshimek]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6257980#post6257980 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by pszemol

Hi,

What could be other reason for anemone not firing its nematocysts?

The two conditions that cause this are inappropriate food, and poor, overall, physiological condition.

And would this condition return to normal over time or once it is lost it is lost forever?

As soon as it got an appropriate food item, or the over condition improved it would start to feed. Anemones don't "lose" there nematocysts.

How do I recognize the food was "rejected" not eaten from the regular egestion ?

Without microscopic examination, you can't. However, generally healthy anemones with good food egest very little. They seem to be able to digest most of the food.

Also, assuming I use appropriate food (tested for over 2 years to its liking) can I continue feeding my anemone this way and expect it to use the food at least partiarly as its energy source ?

Feeding is not a passive response. The animal has to ingest the food and then hold it to the edges of the internal septa by the action of nematocysts on those septa. Digestion occurs in the minute spaces between the food items and the septal edge. If the nematocysts on the tentacles are not firing, odds very high that the internal ones won't either. You could stuff it full of what you considered food, and unless the nematocysts worked all you would be doing is causing it stress as the food decomposed inside it.

BTW - Previously I was not surprised with the oxygen production alone because I know it is produced during photosyntesis... I was rather refering to the phenomenon of capturing this oxygen bubbles in the network of algal cells, which is similar to what happens in case of cyanobacteria and does not happen for briopsis or for example.

This is simply a result of mucus production. Bryopsis doesn't produce mucus in as copious amounts as do either dinos or cyanobacters.

 

[pszemol]

An update:

The anemone and all fish/corals are in the temporary setup made of a 20 gallon plastic rubbermaid tub and wait for their new home... while I am in a process of setting up a larger, 58 gallon reef-ready tank.

After moving anemone from the algae-infested tank to a clean IO saltwater it started recovering slowly. In about 2 weeks it started expanding as usual, eating and even exposing bubbles on his tentacle tips... Tentacles are alive again and the food sticks to them.

I would risk the statement it has fully recovered now. Due to the lack of room in the tub (rocks too close to each other) or it is still not perfectly healthy it still does not expand to a foot diameter... But it looks like it will pretty soon. I hope I will be ready with new reef setup before he starts doing this again

Moving the anemone and other animals to a healthy environment (tub with clean IO saltwater) instead of trying to fix the tank with all animals inside was the proper solution. I wish I would do it sooner - maybe I would not loose two tuxedo urchins.