What is a bleached anemone?

[salth2owannabe]

I have seen a number of comments regarding a "bleached" anemone. What actually is this describing? I would assume it is bleached by excessive light, but is it stress?
I was at a LFS yesturday and saw 3 anemones in a tank and all looked very white to clear. They were in a tank with what I thought was very poor lighting, and thus the question?
Thanks much.

 

[GSMguy]

a bleached its anemone is one that hs lost ot symbyotic alae and is thereroe lacking in color
this happens from shipping and from lack of light not too much

they need lots of lighting

 

[RedEyeElf]

overheating causes it, bad water, lack of light

 

[JamesJR]

The white ones are definately bleached. It can take a little while to be able to spot bleaching though becuase they won't always be white.

 

[raoul]

Loss of color = bleaching.

They can be varying lighter shades of their natural color, white, or transparent. Sometimes nems that are naturally green will show up as yellow in the bleaching process, so, as metioned above, bleached nems aren't always white.

The symbiotic algae referred to above is zooxanthellae, which gives them color, the nems also use this zoox. as an energy source. Because it's an algae, it needs appropriate lighting to thrive. Taking away the light lessens the zoox. population, which can affect the nem in a bad way. Some will physically expell zoox. during stressful events as mentioned above.

It's an unfortunate situtation when a nem is stressed to the point that it expells it's zoox., and then is placed in an environment where there is neither appropriate lighting or feedings to help them recover.

On a positive note, with some luck and the right conditions, some nems can recover from this.