Anemone loses tentacles

Kiwi369

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Hi all!

Yesterday after turning the lights on, I found a tentacle of my Anemone. (a regular red tip I'm guessing, has a green heart, the beginning of the tentacles is green too. The rest of the tentacles is bright red/pinkish.)
Apperently they let go of one. And my question is, is this a cry for help? I heard stories where Anemones started eating their own tentacles because they were starving. But mine just let go of theirs. Besides, the lighting I have is pretty strong, it should be more than enough. He regularly just eats some of the food I feed my fish.
And sometimes he gets feed some frozen food (just to make sure they wouldn't starve themself...)

Recently he split (about a month ago)
There are two clowns (about 4/5cm) in the anemone (at least 20cm+)
 

vetteguy53081

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Either a remnant from the split or highly stressed
I say split
 
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Kiwi369

Kiwi369

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Doubt if stress is the case. Barely touched the tank lately and the water values are great at the moment. (Slightly high Ca that's all)

So I think it's from the split then
 

jtf74

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Have seen this after splits and once when some got caught in powerhead and dropped but recooperated fine. I doubt it would last from a split that long ago. the dropped tentacles in mine shriveled and disappeared in days.
 

Birdbrains?

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I have never kept BTAs but my experience with LTAs, is that discarded tentacles can happen due to changes in position or flow. I had a period of trying to rearrange the current in the dedicated anemone tank I keep, and noticed that if flow is changed significantly around LTAs, their tentacles can start to grow dual "branches". But if the flow is then changed around once more, the anemones can also choose to discard the new growth again. My suspicion is it may happen when an anemone feel that an exact position of growth, is not optimal.

Discarded tentacles does not seem in any way related to anemone self-cannibalism. Nems may starve so they simply become smaller and smaller but the self-cannibalism is not like that at all. I have seen the self-cannibalism with a smaller LTA that was severely weakened after shipping, and it intentionally put its own tentacles into the mouth opening, and ate the tips. That way they can apparently reuse their own mass and energy, while securely closing up the wound at tip of the tentacle.

Your nem splitting may have caused it to discard tentacles that it no longer felt was in optimal positions, in order to regrow new ones. So I would advise that you do not concern yourself unless you see other signs of distress.
 
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