Carpet Anemone Help (Haddoni/Gigantea)

[Tommypantsmagee]

Hi there I'm hoping to get a little bit of help or advice on these 2 carpet anemones, a Blue Haddoni and a Purple Gigantea, from the experts.
@OrionN @D-Nak
Both were purchased from Dr. Mac at PEA on May 16.
We brought them home and put them in the tank, a 3ft 65G display with 20G Sump. (ICP Test also attached)
On May 22 we noticed that Blue Haddoni was deflating and getting pretty small daily and started to have his mouth inside out. On May 25 we removed him from the tank and put him into a 10Gal QT tank and started treatment with 250mg of Cipro Daily.
On May 27 we removed the Purple Gigantea and moved him into the QT tank as well.
By June 1 they were both looking good in the QT and staying open all day. They continued to look fine until June 7th.
On June 3 We reintroduced them back into the display tank. On June 7 while moving some corals farther away from the anemones, a few Porcelain Crabs accidentally jumped into the purple gigantea, and got eaten. The next morning he spit out some exoskeleton and since then has been pooping out bits of exoskeleton and while usually looking happy he will periodically look droopy (especially after pooping out exoskeleton)
Meanwhile the Blue Haddoni has been doing daily inflate and deflate cycles, and we aren’t sure if its just normal cycles from the lighting changing since we usually observe it around the same times each day when lights are ramping up and ramping down.

Pics attached of when we first got it as well as it starting to act weird.
QT Pics in next post

First introduction 5/16

5/24 FTS Showing Blue being super small

5/25 Haddoni Mouth

Gigantea acting weird 5/26

 

[Tommypantsmagee]

QT Photos

5/26 Haddoni QT

5/27 Haddoni QT

5/27 GIG QT
AM

PM (New Cipro Dose)

5/28 Haddoni QT

5/28 GIG QT

5/29 GIG QT

5/30 Haddoni QT

5/30 GIG QT

5/31 Haddoni QT

5/31 GIG QT

6/1 Haddoni QT

6/1 GIG QT

6/2 Haddoni QT

6/2 GIG QT

After re introduction to DT on 6/4

 

[Tommypantsmagee]

6/9 GIG deflated and droopy

6/10 5:08 & 5:10 PM

6/10 6:38 PM (roughly 1.5 hours after the above)

6/10 Haddoni Deflated

And Finally our ICP Results for the tank, Sample date 6/5/2026 is also attached

 

[Tommypantsmagee]

6/11 just before lights on this morning
GIG is still deflated and droopy and seems be moving his. foot around the rock some.
Blue is still small but seems to have his mouth closed.

 

[Hot2na]

Sometimes when I visit PEA -I will see one or 2 anemones in his greenhouse system with symptoms like gaping mouth or deflation ..That does not prevent me from purchasing one of the healthy looking specimens in that same system .What I do in that case is place the new anemone in an observation tank for 10-14 days...and from there decide whether to treat with abx or introduce into DT eventually ...When you're bringing in 50-100 nems at one time ,some are bound to get sick-even with strong natural sunlight and good flow and feeding like they receive at PEA...

 

[Tommypantsmagee]

We did the Cipro treatment for both of them and both were looking good for a solid three days before we put them back in the display tank. These are what both of them look like this morning at this time we set up cameras so we can get a full tank shot and see the purple and a side camera to see blue. purple has inflated again and is almost back to being the full-size that he was and blue is back to looking completely normal. I’m not sure if purple is just trying to find a new spot in the tank since his foot has moved and we have increased the flow from an MP 10 to an MP 40 and we are currently acclimating them to the lights at 100%

 

[Tommypantsmagee]

Sometimes when I visit PEA -I will see one or 2 anemones in his greenhouse system with symptoms like gaping mouth or deflation ..That does not prevent me from purchasing one of the healthy looking specimens in that same system .What I do in that case is place the new anemone in an observation tank for 10-14 days...and from there decide whether to treat with abx or introduce into DT eventually ...When you're bringing in 50-100 nems at one time ,some are bound to get sick-even with strong natural sunlight and good flow and feeding like they receive at PEA...

Oh, all of the Nems looked amazing at PEA, no complaints about that.

 

[Tommypantsmagee]

Pics as if right now

 

[Tommypantsmagee]

Current pic, inflated mouth closed

 

[Tommypantsmagee]

Sometimes when I visit PEA -I will see one or 2 anemones in his greenhouse system with symptoms like gaping mouth or deflation ..That does not prevent me from purchasing one of the healthy looking specimens in that same system .What I do in that case is place the new anemone in an observation tank for 10-14 days...and from there decide whether to treat with abx or introduce into DT eventually ...When you're bringing in 50-100 nems at one time ,some are bound to get sick-even with strong natural sunlight and good flow and feeding like they receive at PEA...

This is a video of them in his holding system the day we got them. they looked pretty healthy to our untrained eyes.

 

[Tommypantsmagee]

Fingers crossed that they may be making a turn for the better as the GIG seems more inflated and happy this morning, and actually was open for some time yesterday.
Blue also seems to be doing better and staying inflated for longer periods of time, and didn't get super small at all yesterday.
Here's them now this morning just before lights come on.

 

[Tommypantsmagee]

And of course now the GIG makes a liar of me.
Once the lights started to come on hes now starting to gape open his mouth and it seems like mesenterial filaments are coming from inside. Also noticing a few random spots on the main body that seem to be bubbled or also making filaments?

Thinking Im going to have to pull him out of the DT later today and go back into the QT tank with more Cipro

 

[Tommypantsmagee]

Decided to pull him out of the DT and move him to the QT again. I was afraid of coming home to finding him too far gone, and figured its better to proactively start treatment with how bad he was looking.

This was him right before pulling him out of the tank



Managed to pretty easily get him off the rock as his foot was only half attached. this is him all upset looking from me pulling him off, when he first went into the QT tank.

A few minutes later he had closed his mouth

And then of course, the Blue Haddoni is still looking the best he has ina while, staying fully inflated and happy looking. I guess having one of them making the mend is better than none.

 

[Tommypantsmagee]

Haddoni bigger than Eve and gig in hospital tank

 

[Tommypantsmagee]

After a couple days this is the purple Gig in the hospital tank. So far it has received two doses of cipro( as we are counting) on this second round of treatment. The Gig looked a little rough yesterday , but the foot has stayed attached to the basket, his mouth is remaining closed most of the time , and he isn’t expelling much of anything. The blue haddoni still looks good and is expanding fully in the DT.

 

[D-Nak]

This may be a case of one anemone infecting the other and then vice versa (I've seen this happen before with haddoni and gigantea). It could also be allelopathy, but that's hard to determine. It seems that they do better when separated, but that could change once they're fully acclimated. I suggest keeping them separated for a couple of weeks to allow them to acclimate independently, then if you want to add the gig back into the DT, you can, but keep the QT tank on hand in case you need to pull it out again.

With a 65 gallon tank, you may want to consider keeping only one of the anemones. Once they get established they can grow quickly, and can easily take up a lot of real estate.

 

[Tommypantsmagee]

Thank you for the response.



The Haddoni was actually in the first round of cipro treatment 2 days longer than the Gig was since the Gig didn’t start deflating until after the haddoni was taken out. They were both in the hospital tank together and were both looking okay at the end of the cipro treatment. The haddoni recieved an extra two days of cipro to bring the Gig to the minimum of 7 days while the haddoni was in the treatment for 9 days.

Both had at least three days of normal behavior in the hospital tank as well. It was only when they went back into the DT that the Gig started acting up again after it ate the porcelain crab. We were thinking that eating that live crab possibly caused him to have issues the same way eating too big a meal can?



The haddoni only deflates now at the same time every day(highest light period) and the time he spends deflated is shorter and shorter each day, so it seems to be just related to the light cycle now and him getting acclimated to it.



We actually added purigen to our sump in case there was any possible allopathy just as a precaution as well.



The entire system was setup specifically for the anemones so they can take up all the real estate in the whole tank as long as they are happy.



We just got home from work, and Fingers crossed, but the Gig is looking much better tonight than he did yesterday.

 

[D-Nak]

I think the haddoni should be fine, just need to fully acclimate. Does the tank have a 3"+ sandbed?

Gigs tend to be more sensitive, but the latest photos look good, so I'm not too concerned. I would err on the side of caution and leave it in QT longer than needed just to be safe (at least a week of normal behavior). That way, once it's added to the DT, it'll be able to handle any stress related to the move.

Glad to hear that the system was set up for anemones. Most people set up tanks for a mixed reef, with anemones being a few of many inhabitants.

 

[Tommypantsmagee]

I think the haddoni should be fine, just need to fully acclimate. Does the tank have a 3"+ sandbed?

Gigs tend to be more sensitive, but the latest photos look good, so I'm not too concerned. I would err on the side of caution and leave it in QT longer than needed just to be safe (at least a week of normal behavior). That way, once it's added to the DT, it'll be able to handle any stress related to the move.

Glad to hear that the system was set up for anemones. Most people set up tanks for a mixed reef, with anemones being a few of many inhabitants.

The sandbed is probably 2 to 3 inches deep. The haddoni didn’t actually bury his foot in the sand. He is attached to 3 pieces of rubble that we purposely used in the tank to provide a margin of sand and rubble for him to bury his foot in. Do you suggest adding some more sand?
We were thinking of extending the QT/hospital tank stay a few more days so a week sounds good to us. He is on day 1 post normal behavior today.

The entire tank is purposely set up for anemones. From the rock and sand , plumbing to the aquascaping. We’ve been planning this for a while. There are a few soft corals and a small duncan colony in the tank but that is it. We chose these based on what we wouldn’t be upset about if the nems walked over them.

 

[Tommypantsmagee]

I think the haddoni should be fine, just need to fully acclimate. Does the tank have a 3"+ sandbed?

Gigs tend to be more sensitive, but the latest photos look good, so I'm not too concerned. I would err on the side of caution and leave it in QT longer than needed just to be safe (at least a week of normal behavior). That way, once it's added to the DT, it'll be able to handle any stress related to the move.

Glad to hear that the system was set up for anemones. Most people set up tanks for a mixed reef, with anemones being a few of many inhabitants.

We found something sort of different than normal yesterday while doing the WC. While we did find the normal balls of poop, this appeared to be a large ball of poop but mixed in were blue/purple bits almost like there was tentacles mixed into the poop ball? There was also a thick mucus strand that came from around his base.
Is it possible this extra amount of waste was due to him ingesting the crab?

Other than that the nem still seems to be doing well, and was inflated pretty much all day yesterday and today. we are considering yesterday the first full day of looking good, and will do a full 7 days before we consider putting him back into teh DT.

Blue Haddoni is still doing great in the DT thankfully as well.