What is my anemone doing?? White stringy stuff from the tips.

[earthboy17]

I walked by my anemone and noticed it had white stringy stuff coming from its tips.

This anemone is a "rescue". When I got it it was bleaching, limp, and lifeless. Since I've had it, it has split, shown bubbles in its tentacles, and eaten. I was hoping I'd be able to nurse it back to health.

It looks about the same color-wise as when I got it about 2 months ago. It generally seems healthier, though. I hope it hasn't regressed!

Both of the anemones are doing ...whatever it is that they are doing. Which seems weird to me that both are doing it. It almost looks like some of the tentacles are (pardon the graphic imagery) ejaculating this stuff. It seems to be coming out of the ends of the tentacles.

Oh yeah, here's a picture taken by my blackberry tour:
(If the anemone is a clock, look for the big tentacle pointing at you at about 8o'clock.)

Is that what it looks like when they expelle zooanthellea? (sp?) I hope not!

They are in a 24g aquapod underneath a 150w MH.


help appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[elegance coral]

It's not zooxanthellae. The anemone doesn't appear to have any to be discharging. I don't' know what it is though.

If it were my anemone, I'd be more concerned about the bleached state its in. I'd be looking for a BTA with zooxanthellae that could be used as a donor.

 

[earthboy17]

You'd be "looking for a BTA with zoo that could be used as a donor"...

Can anemones share zoo?? As in, one anemone can donate to another? Please explain.

 

[rssayer]

you had mentioned that you had two of these in your tank. It is possible that they are attempting sexual reproduction. the male of the species will release the sperm and in doing so entice the female to release her eggs.
Other than that look to see if this is coming from the mouth of the nem which could just be waste excretion at that.

 

[Jamie1210]

Hey, I had this happen to a couple BTAs that I used to keep. I posted it on this very forum, but strangely enough, no one's ever seen this happen before.

What happened to me was, mine ate well, but eventually, these white stringy tips just became more and more frequent on other tentacles. What's more is that these tips became LONGER and the anemone tentacles SHORTER until the whole anemone just sort of rotted away Mind you, this took MONTHS to accomplish ... but i'm hoping that maybe you'll have a different outcome.

For the record, my BTAs were not bleached, so it's definitely not a symptom of bleaching.

 

[earthboy17]

Hm, well I suppose that's good... I guess.

Thanks for your insight.

 

[elegance coral]

You'd be "looking for a BTA with zoo that could be used as a donor"...

Can anemones share zoo?? As in, one anemone can donate to another? Please explain.

Yes. As long as it's the appropriate clad. I've saved a LTA this way. Another reefer here did something similar with a gigantea, and I'm in the process of trying to harvest zooxanthellae from a BTA here in Florida to ship to PA for an anemone that's been bleached for over a year.
In the wild, species of coral and anemone, that don't get zooxanthellae from their parents, have only one other place they can get it. That's the water column. Coral and anemones are constantly regulating the population of zooxanthellae in their system. As the population grows, they discharge small amounts. This makes zooxanthellae available to neighboring corals and anemones that may be in need. In captivity, if we have a bleached anemone, and we can get it to ingest zooxanthellae from a donor of the same species, it should repopulate the bleached individual. In theory this should work fine. I only know of two attempts. Both attempts seem to have been successful. My LTA was bleached for a number of months. I don't remember exactly how long. If it had zooxanthellae they should have grown in the time before the transplant. Within days of the transplant, zooxanthellae began to show around the anemones mouth. Several months later, it looked almost identical to the donor. In the case of the gigantea I mentioned, the transplant was done shortly after the person acquired the anemone. I guess it could be argued that the anemone would have regained its zooxanthellae even without the transplant, but I doubt it.

 

[elegance coral]

I'm going to go way out on a limb here and guess that the white stuff coming out of the anemones tentacle is mesenterial filiments. Are there any other anemones in the system? Any soft corals that could be discharging chemicals? Any chance of contaminants in the water, like air freshener, or cleaning products?