Anemone Melting/Dying/Splitting?

Ok - first off I know my anemone is fine. We see this question asked very often in this hobby. Usually it is by someone new to anemones but sometimes it's by someone that has kept an anemone for months but has never seen the behavior.

So I thought I would start this thread as a means to calm everyone down when they see their anemone doing the same thing.

I admit it is disturbing to come home and see your beautiful anemone looking like this:



Deflated, mouth gaping open, guts spilling out. How can anything that looks like this be good? I mean it MUST be dying right?



And why is only half of it deflated and the other half looks just fine? What's going on?

Relax - it's not splitting, melting, dying, or anything else bad...it's pooping


This is what is left of a 2" silverside fed to the anemone 2 nights before.




This is what the anemone looks like today:





Remember that an anemone only has 1 orifice. It's kind of disgusting to think about but they poop from the same hole they eat with. When they defecate they purge the contents of their body, not only solid matter but all internal water as well. Right after the first pictures were taken and the silverside carcass floated away the anemone complete deflated and retreated in to it's cave. Obviously as you can see by the pictures from this morning. It turned out just fine.

It's important to not over-react and understand what you are watching. Many people would immediately pull this nem from the tank to prevent it from fouling the water and killing everything in the tank. Unfotumately doing so means almost certain demise of the anemone. It's very fragile and in a very weak state and yanking it's foot off the rock and pulling it out of the water creates an EXTREME amount of stress on the animal.

Unless you know that is is dying please let it be, no one likes to have their morning poo interrupted - neither do our animals.

lol thanks for putting this up. I love how easily you put that it was pooping

Good post Craig

Nice, definitely a good guide.

I LIKE!

this is EXCELLENT information craig! ....and also quite creative ..........something that ALL of us can benefit from....thanks so much ......so tell me...when this first happened, were you one of us who initially panicked?

Great work Craig.

Originally Posted by Barbara

this is EXCELLENT information craig! ....and also quite creative ..........something that ALL of us can benefit from....thanks so much ......so tell me...when this first happened, were you one of us who initially panicked?

I can honestly say yes - I did freak out a little - I had never before caught it quite at this stage of defecation and really wasn't sure what it was doing. I decided it would be best to grab the camera regardless. Fortunately while I was taking the pictures I saw the silverside carcass come out and float away.

It really is tough to fight the urge to intervene in your tank. I've fought it for years and am now pretty good at just letting nature figure it out (unless it's something I can fix by moving a coral 2 inches to the right). I figured if it was melting and dying then I'd be thankful that I have a good skimmer. If it was just pooping I'd have one hell of a thread to start.

.......I think we all need to chill a bit when it comes to our tanks........for instance, my anthias is now doing perfectly fine........I panicked at first, couldn't get her out of the tank, couldn't get the medication........and turns out she's fine ......though I think it's good to jump on things - ask advice first though!

Ditto. I had one of my clowns come down with pop-eye about 2 weeks ago - I couldn't get her out to medicate so I let her be - all better now.

Now i find out.I thought my Sea bay was dead now i find out all it need was some pepto?

Great so i flushed it.Welp i guess he would have a problem going to the bathroom now

All drains go to the ocean my friend.

lol

Originally Posted by cdangel0

All drains go to the ocean my friend.

Haha Only in Mexico

Honestly? I couldn't count the number of anem's that "may" have survived if just left alone, seriously people should hang around the LFS when shipments come in, some deadstock really is just napping lol, great thread!

Hows the bubble tip doing Craig??

That was
VERY helpful

Great info, thanks.

Glad I could be of service.

craig, great info, but are you also saying that a sick nem who looks like that needs to be kept in the tank until disintegration has begun? b/c some nems who look like yours get worse, right. would you have done something drastic if you hadn't seen the silversideor if the nem hadn't withdrawn? i guess i'm wondering when the critter actually needs to be taken out of the tank.
thnks