Why is my H. Crispa's mouth protruding?

[55semireef]

Well I am very sad to say I had to toss my H. Crispa. After of having been in my tank for almost a year it began to move. Its mouth protruded so much that it was bigger than its own size. It was floating around the tank being washed in the current. He/she was a goner...

I wasn't going to risk hoping that my Crispa would land in a spot and attach overnight. Most likely it would have got caught in one of the powerheads. I had to toss it. I am so sad. This is really my first real anemone that I bought, brought back to health and raised. I bought it badly bleached at around 3-4 inches in diameter and it got to about 13-14 inches in diamter. I am not really sure what happened here...

I am not sure what I am going to do with my anemone cube that I am setting up. Meaning, I don't know what anemone I want. I am not sure if I want to buy a H. Crispa again. Maybe a green Haddoni or RBTA?

Well I am very sad and this was just another major learning experience for me. But what bothers me most is that I don't know the cause of this death. Trust me, I tried everything to figure out what was going on.

 

[GuOD]

I was just reading earlier and found something (don't know how old) that said Sebaes only live about a year in captivity... I know there are a few people on here who have had them longer though. Mine is at 4-5 months now or so... They also might have been talking about Malus.

 

[55semireef]

Do you have a link to that GuOD? I would be interested in reading that. Or was it a book?

 

[GuOD]

I have no idea how legitmate the source is or anything... I just skimmed it when I was trying to read about another kind of anemone.

http://fins.actwin.com/species/anemone.html

Mine is different from yours though. Mine is a pure tan and yours is the kind with purple tips.. and I think the tentacles are slightly different. (but they're probably the same species or whatever)

 

[TikiDan]

I have had my H. Cripsa for 3 years now and it is thriving!

 

[marc price]

sorry to hear the bad news .
i don't know if this will help, regardless, about a month ago i had been feeding my new sebae every other day, got to the point where the clown, p. tang and cbbf would swarm it and take food out of it's tentacles. often as it was being engulfed by the mouth . additionally the clown would dive head first into the mouth after it ate causing it to open up enough to grab the morsal . one day i didn't have the time to chase them away so i decided to put a black plastic mesh basket over the feeding sebae. when i got back to it several hours latter the clownfish had dug under the basket to get the (to large for the anemone) morsel of salmon. the rim of the basket resting on the sebaes now thoroughly engorged inside-out mouth. it's tentacles were deflated and i thought i had killed it. the next day the mouth began to close up again. the clown nestled beside it at night yet it now remained unattached and about the size of a sea scallop from the supermarket. took about 6 days for it to burry its column in the sand (same location) and reattach. i resumed feeding it on the 8th day, continuing to feed it smaller pencil erasure sized morsels every third day. it once again has expanded its tentacles (lengthwise) and is about 5"ø. i org. got this anemone intending to give it to my neighbor for their 55 now i think i'm going to leave it in my 100 at least till its a good 12"-16".
my last sebae (which i sold back to the lfs after a year), did something like that the day i bought it. i watched it eat waited a few hours, had it bagged, looked at it at checkout and it was deflated with a protruding inside-out mouth. i did well with two diff. s. haddoni carpets previous to that but i remember standing in line looking at it and thinking what the f@#% am i doing? that one took a few weeks to attach and a few months to fully color up from all but bleached.
i can only infer something chemical/mechanical had stressed them as may very well have been the case with your sebae. if you like sebaes stick with them, better luck next time around .

 

[55semireef]

Thanks marc price. I would really like to go with a nice sized RBTA this time around. I will do sebaes in the future just not this time.

 

[GuOD]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10417176#post10417176 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 55semireef
Thanks marc price. I would really like to go with a nice sized RBTA this time around. I will do sebaes in the future just not this time.

I have an RBTA and Crispa in my 150... both are doing great but I have to say the RBTA is much more colorful!!

 

[shred5]

55semireef maybe it was nothing you did wrong. Sometimes things just get sick and die. Maybe it just had some internal problems... To bad it is gone and a bta will be much easier to keep.

Dave

 

[marc price]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10417191#post10417191 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GuOD
I have an RBTA and Crispa in my 150... both are doing great but I have to say the RBTA is much more colorful!!

roses are more colorful and imo can be very nice when they retain their bubble tips.
check out this "japanese purple sebae" currently on divers den :

 

[55semireef]

Wow at first I thought those were RBTAs marc price. Those are very colorful. I do really like the RBTAs but I also like green Haddonis. I know a buddy of mine where I can buy his for aroud $60. It's pretty big. However I am not going to have little sand in my cube and I am worried that if I were to get a green Haddoni it would not like the fact there is no sand.


shred5, I hope you're right. I hope it is something that I didn't do because I changed nothing in the tank. Still, there will always be that question "why did it die."

 

[marc price]

haddoni does like a sand substrate however there is a picture of one on a deep reef slope in the solomons .^ p. 55 Invertebrates A Quick Reference Guide by J. Sprung. the surface substrate appears covered in coraline alage , i would assume it's column is wedged into a crevice . i had one on a 2" deep sand bed which would twist its column around over and under the contours of a large 19 lb (dry), ornamental cats paw coral at the sand rock interface. as it grew larger it could easily lift and reposition the coral .

 

[Amphiprion]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10415567#post10415567 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GuOD
I was just reading earlier and found something (don't know how old) that said Sebaes only live about a year in captivity... I know there are a few people on here who have had them longer though. Mine is at 4-5 months now or so... They also might have been talking about Malus.

Wow, that article isn't correct at all. That may be the typical lifespan, considering what happens so often. But the actual lifespan has to be much more than that. I have had mine for 12 years and another member, phender, has had his for even longer. I believe traveller7 has had his for a long time, as well. There is also one that I took care of at an LFS and it had been in captivity for over 7 years. I think the article meant typical lifespan due to unfortunate problems, etc., though.

55semireef, I am so sorry you lost your crispa. I have no clue as to why, especially considering that it was perfectly healthy for the longest time.

 

[55semireef]

marc price so you think it "could" work with a green Haddoni having little sand?

 

[55semireef]

Amphiprion, I know. I would really like to get another H. Crispa again. I might as well.

 

[Slakker]

Sorry to hear the bad news...wishing you better luck with future specimens.

 

[marc price]

cant say for sure but i don't see why not. it may move around more than you would like. i think mine would take a road trip about once every six months. it usually returned to the org. location. i would think it's best to try to replicate your captives natural environment as much as possible. in the wild s. haddoni can pull rapidly and completely beneath the sand when disturbed. considering how large they get a sand bed much deeper than most would prob. be required. i haven't heard of people doing that. perhaps others could let you know what's worked for them.

 

[phender]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10415672#post10415672 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GuOD
I have no idea how legitmate the source is or anything... I just skimmed it when I was trying to read about another kind of anemone.

http://fins.actwin.com/species/anemone.html

Mine is different from yours though. Mine is a pure tan and yours is the kind with purple tips.. and I think the tentacles are slightly different. (but they're probably the same species or whatever)

That article was written in the early 90's. It was trying to point out that H. crispas that are white or dyed yellow are not healthy and don't survive well. Sebaes that are tan have a much greater life expectancy.

At the time it was written, popular literature was saying that sebae anemones were a good beginners anemone. In the early 90's it was almost impossible to find a sebae anemone that wasn't bleached(very few people at that time even knew they weren't supposed to be white). I did a little research on the usenet (in the days before the world wide web ) and found that amoung some of the top aquarists of the time, very few were able to keep white sebaes alive. I wrote the article originally to debunk the articles saying that sebaes were easy. It turned out to be a broader article.

 

[55semireef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10424405#post10424405 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by marc price
cant say for sure but i don't see why not. it may move around more than you would like. i think mine would take a road trip about once every six months. it usually returned to the org. location. i would think it's best to try to replicate your captives natural environment as much as possible. in the wild s. haddoni can pull rapidly and completely beneath the sand when disturbed. considering how large they get a sand bed much deeper than most would prob. be required. i haven't heard of people doing that. perhaps others could let you know what's worked for them.

Yes in the past I have had S. Haddoni anemones and I knowy they are very capable of "dissappearing." I should of kept my last green Haddoni instead of selling it.

That article was written in the early 90's. It was trying to point out that H. crispas that are white or dyed yellow are not healthy and don't survive well. Sebaes that are tan have a much greater life expectancy.

That's what I was thinking too. I know Crispa anemones are very capable of living a long life as long as you give them a replicated enviroment of what's natural to them.