What the heck lol!

[james-lee]

So I have had this rock anemone for about 3+ weeks. I waited a week and fed him a small piece of shrimp and he ate (I am assuimg cause I went to bed right after.) I have tried to feed 2 other times including today and he does this....

The i have tried shrimp the other two times and today was a piece of silverside. I cant say that the piece is too big cause damn his mouth is huge! His first set of lips open up and he negins to slowly close over the food as the second mouth inside starts to open. then bam he goes in reverse and lets it go and basks in the light again. I mean his colow is good and he seems normal I could just not feed him and just use the light source for energy, but I want him to eat something once in while. Any advice on why rock anemone would do this?

Parameters
Salinity 1.025
pH 8.2
dKH 10
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 40
Calcium 600 (still working on this)
Mag 1400

He sits under 800 watts of 20k MH and 154 of 6500k T5 supplements. T5 are on for 12 hours and MH for 10.

 

[bradleym]

Well, for starters, it's actually a Heteractis Aurora, AKA Beaded Sea Anemone, which is a sand dwelling anemone. So putting it in sand at least 3 inches deep may help improve its attitude.

 

[james-lee]

Thank you for the info. It was sold as a rock anemone so I have been treating it as such. It has its foot buried into the sand bed behind that rock work and just extends itself out from an opening. Ill try a smaller feed tonight maybe the size of a dime this time.

 

[james-lee]

Okay I fed it a piece of shrimp. It released the whole piece at first. I then squashed the shrimp so it was more mushy and it ate it and kept it down. Dont know if its because of the solid texture or perhaps the nem tasted the juices after squashing it. I am just happy it ate again lol! Thanks for the heads up on what type of nem I had.

 

[Bluemon]

pretty anemone!

lol to me it looks like a huge aiptasia. (the patterns look the same)

 

[SNAKEMANVET]

Try feeding it some mysis shrimp,some of the people here have stopped feeding silversides to anemones.Nice beaded anemone.

 

[OrionN]

Try to feed it a much smaller piece. Anemone are mostly water so that anemone have very little actual mass. The piece of silver side in the picture there is likely as much or only slightly smaller than the actual anemone. I guess it is like you eating your weight in food. It take energy to digest the food and the anemone just does not have that much energy to digest that chunk of food

 

[james-lee]

Thanks guys for the input. Thats what I did I took a very small piece of shrimp and squashed it and it ate it. I actually see the digested lump on the sand bed next to it lol! So does it look bleached or is that a natural color. Tried googling for pictures but so many different colrs showed up. The only one I saw that had a close reseblence was green and mine is more tan/light brown.

 

[OrionN]

....I actually see the digested lump on the sand bed next to it lol! .....

You should not see any digested food. What you see is food that is not digested. Don't overfeed it. You should geed it once a week or so, certainly not more than twice a week. Wait until it get healthy first before you feed it more. I would feed it 1/4 cubic ml every week.

 

[james-lee]

Okay will try smaller and wait a week. Thanks!

 

[james-lee]

Anemone FINALLY buried itself into the sand bed (with the help of a cup and my gently placing sand all around it lol!

 

[jumpman420]

Looks better already. Smaller foods are much easier for them to work with I have noticed.