Anemone Melting/Dying/Splitting?

About the nem's... There is a point where this becomes very counterproductive for a DT. If your nem goes down hill take it out, put it in a frag or separate tank and it will come back in time. These things live for a very long time in the wild and it is easy for them to come back w/ a few cells just like any other coral it just needs time. My suggestion is stay away from BTA's b/c they are annoying lol.

Good post. I wish I had this a couple of years ago when i came home and saw my GBT looking like this as well. Man I was going crazy thinking it was dying.

Wow. Craig I wish I would have seen this thread before this morning. I have an anemone doing this exact behavior. I thought it was dying because it lost its host clown. I guess I was wrong. I really liked it too. My lfs gave Mr credit for it so it isn't a complete loss.

Well I created the original post with the intent of calming nerves and maybe saving a few anemones lives. Unfortunately people are very quick to fear the worst (with good reason) and yank a perfectly healthy animal out of the tank.


Personally I'd be PISSED if someone yanked me off the toilet after my Sunday morning coffee and shoved me out the back door!!!


Well at least now you know for next time.

Yeah I definitely will now. Sorry about the crappy grammar. I was at work and replied on my phone. Thanks for the great thread!

Shmoliken (sp?, trying to go from memory here) to answer your question, "when IS it time for removal?". There are 2 signs to look for with a dying anemone. One is that it turns itself inside out and what appears to come out of it's mouth looks like a ball of tangled up white thread, and you can be even more sure when you bring it near the surface it will have a foul odor.

Cdangel, what you posted is very good info however I will add a bit to it. If your BtA does that after eating then one of two scenarios is happening and in your case, it's both. One, you are feeding it to large of a quantity of food, and two, your are feeding it a food lacking in nutrition. In the wild BTA's do not capture food like a ritteri or a carpet does, they rely on their clown and he clown brings pieces no larger than a pencil eraser, (usually) and if it is spitting the food back out, as your is that means that your anemone is using more energy to expel than absorbing nutrients.

Sorry for the rant but I'm sleepy, SO long story short, cut off the head and tail of the silverside and give the nem the most nutrition and he shouldn't have to expel any of it, if he does switch foods to maybe a mysis.
BTA's are one nem that CAN rely solely on photosynthesis but I know its fun to watch them eat so choose your foods nutritionally.

Tizzo, that was very informative. I always see people trying to feed their nems silversides and whole shrimp, yet you are saying not feeding (as long as the lighting is strong enough) is just as good?

Some nems need it, but Bubble tips aren't one of those. For example, my own is a rose with yellow tips and when it's stressed ie, it gets sucked into a powerheads and rips half it's body to shreads, or my temps change drastically to 70° or as high as 94° (all of which has happened) but when those things happen my nem completely bleaches out all his color. Absolutely stark white, and all 3 times he has completely regained color and in that one case, half his body and I have never fed him in the 3 or so years I've had him.

I am a fan of feeding corals, I target feed all of my lps's. But for an anemone, it wastes more energy tryin to expel the food than it benefits from it- unless you find a food that it doesn't expel, which means that it actually utilized the food.

And if you hafta feed it, I'd keep the food to pieces the size of a pencil eraser, or did I already mention that?
- and as usual, pardon the typos, this is all on my self correcting iPhone.

I feed mine extremely rarely. I find that especially when you're trying to get them to grow large that added feedings help.

I don't think the nem is expending more energy then it's receiving trying to expel the heads of silversides. That's like saying that I should eat a T-Bone because it's going to take a lot of work to digest it and poop out what I don't use.

I think there's limits, and I agree that a bubble tip really doesn't need to be fed often - but I don't need a beer at the end of the day either - it doesn't mean it's not a nice treat.

I feed mine a couple times a week and I've never seen it spit anything back out. It's not huge chunks of fish though. Just clumps of the DIY mix I made for the fish that didn't get chopped down enough.

we've never seen ours expel anything either glen - well at least not in the past 4 years (he did spit out urchin shells and snail shells a day after he gobbled them but he's in his own tank now with nothing to tempt him).........we feed about once every 2-3 weeks - maybe a bit more often now that the clowns are gone ...though I also agree that this thread is EXCELLENT info for anyone owning anemones!

Ok let me first say THANK YOU for your thread. I had not known they do this and like everyone else freeked out to see my beautiful anemone look like it was dead. started to pull it out but then stopped and rushed to the forums to discover your thread. Sure enough...it started to poo! OMG would have never had known. Looking better now.

brandiwine

brandiwine Glad this thread helped you out.