FWIW: anemones are one thing I would personally like to see in the store before buying. The condition that you buy an anemone will greatly determine your immediate success in keeping it alive. Trying to nurse an unhealthy anemone back is a bit of an uphill battle that can be avoided by selecting a good specimen.
From what I've seen, many times anemones are in less than acceptable condition. Besides the bleaching & dying mentioned already, you also want to make sure the foot is healthy, its mouth isn't gaping open, tentacles are sticky, etc.
I have a sebae I bought at LFS on impulse (I know, bad thing to do). When I got it home, I started to do some research only to find many people claiming sebaes are hard to keep. I was feeling pretty bummed about that, but luckily my sebae is doing very very well. The thing is just huge now (maybe 10 inches across, probably only 4 inches when I bought about 5 months ago) and my 2 clowns don't go more than a few inches away from it. Most of the time my male clown can't even be seen cuz the sebae's tentacles are so long it covers him up completely. But he does come out every once in a while, probably just to make sure the female is still hanging around (she likes to guard the area while the male tends to just lay down in the sebae).
I've also heard that sebaes don't split like other anenomes...not sure if that's true or not.
HTH,
Rob
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