Dying sebae anemone

waynel · Feb 4, 2021

In the past six months I've had two sebae anemones. The first one started out great, and I had it few weeks. It did move around quite and bit (I have a 125 gallon). It took about 2-3 weeks, but finally my clown pair discovered it and chased it around as it moved. It never did seem to attach anywhere, and after about 2 months, it moved to a shaded area in the front of my tank, and almost over night shriveled up to nothing and fell apart.

So, about a week ago I got another, and it almost immediately got to about the same area as the last one. It seems to be full and doing ok, until 2 days ago and started shriveling up. This morning, it seems to be losing its flesh. I have it out of the thank in a measuring cup now, just in case.

I'll be retesting all of my water parameters shortly and will post those.

My only pictures of the first one:

I don't seem to have any luck with these, buy my clowns love them while they last. Lighting, flow?

Current one right now:

Full tank shot

Current one this morning

Parameters a few weeks ago:
Phosphorous: 22ppb
Phosphate: 0.08 mgL
Nitrate: 26.9 mgL
pH: 8.2
SG 1.025
Alk: 8.4
Calcium: 505

I'll retest shortly and post current parameters.

GoReefin · Feb 4, 2021

From what I understand they like a lot of light. What lights are you running?

waynel · Feb 4, 2021

GoReefin said:
From what I understand they like a lot of light. What lights are you running?

viparspectra 165w x 3 and current usa dual orbit lights.

GoReefin · Feb 4, 2021

waynel said:
viparspectra 165w x 3 and current usa dual orbit lights.

Looks like plenty of light. Was it's mouth open or gaping before turning to mush?

waynel · Feb 4, 2021

GoReefin said:
Looks like plenty of light. Was it's mouth open or gaping before turning to mush?

This second one, yes, its mouth was open a day or two after I put it in the tank. The first one, I don't recall seeing that. I never tried to bury either of their foots, just put it in the tank and turned flow down a bit. should I burry the foot in the sand?

waynel · Feb 4, 2021

I just tested, and my parameters are:
SG 1.025
Phosphorus 29ppb
Phosphate 0.09
Nitrate 8.8
Ph 8.3
Alk 7.0
Calcium 491

waynel · Feb 8, 2021

So, going forward, if/when I get another another anemone (will either be a long tentacle or sebae) - I'm definitely going to quarantine. I believe, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that both the sebae and long tentacle anemone bury their foot in the sand. That may be part of my issue. My base is mostly crushed shell/coral, some sand, but not a lot of fine sand. I was thinking I should make a spot that is about 4" of sand that it can bury in.
But, when I quarantine, I have a small 10 gallon nano tank I could use, I would not use any type of filter media, and do frequent water changes, put some sand in the bottom, and possibly treat with cipro which seems to the more favored medicine for anemones. What kind of small, but sufficient LED light could I put over this for the anemone, and how long should I quarantine before moving to my aquarium (where I would do the light acclimation again)?

waynel · Feb 9, 2021

Anyone?

alysak6075 · Feb 9, 2021

I have a LTA under a viparspectra 300W in a 54 Gallon corner. What I find is: its very sensitive to water flow. Every time I clean my powerheads, it gets ticked off for a day or 2. Yes it does burry its foot in the sand, I dont think crushed coral will be an issue. Them moving all over the place is i think looking for the right amount of flow. Mine parked itself right by my euphyllia garden. So whats good for frogspawn and such, is good for my LTA.

Also: what are your settings on the viparspectra lights?

waynel · Feb 9, 2021

alysak6075 said:
I have a LTA under a viparspectra 300W in a 54 Gallon corner. What I find is: its very sensitive to water flow. Every time I clean my powerheads, it gets ticked off for a day or 2. Yes it does burry its foot in the sand, I dont think crushed coral will be an issue. Them moving all over the place is i think looking for the right amount of flow. Mine parked itself right by my euphyllia garden. So whats good for frogspawn and such, is good for my LTA.

Also: what are your settings on the viparspectra lights?

My 3 viparspectra lights (165w each) are controlled by reefpi and I have the blues come on from 7am-6pm, ramping up to 80% and then back down. I have the whites ramp up to 30% during they day, on from 8am until 5pm.

I do have a lot of flow in the tank. I have the two back corner overflows going into my sump, and being returned by an Current USA eFlux dc pump, about 3000gph, and I have 3 eFlux wave pumps, one on each side blowing across and angled slightly down and one on the back glass blowing toward the front. There's lots of flow in all areas, no real "low flow" spots. I have the wave pumps on surge mode, so they cycle from 0 to 40%.

alysak6075 · Feb 9, 2021

Just to compare my 300W Viparspectra runs: 2pm - 10pm, Blue: 55%; White: 15%

I have 2 550GPH powerheads and a Jebao DCS-7000 on the lowest setting as a return. There are highflow and lower flow areas. The LTA has never stayed in a highflow area more than an hour. She found a low flow area and hasnt budged ever since. So the issue might be that the flow is beating up your anemone too much. Just something to consider. Maybe build a small wall break so you can place the anemone into it, like a "cup"

waynel · Feb 9, 2021

alysak6075 said:
Just to compare my 300W Viparspectra runs: 2pm - 10pm, Blue: 55%; White: 15%

I have 2 550GPH powerheads and a Jebao DCS-7000 on the lowest setting as a return. There are highflow and lower flow areas. The LTA has never stayed in a highflow area more than an hour. She found a low flow area and hasnt budged ever since. So the issue might be that the flow is beating up your anemone too much. Just something to consider. Maybe build a small wall break so you can place the anemone into it, like a "cup"

I'll try turning down my flow some. Maybe turning the return pump down to about 1/2 speed and turning off one of the wave pumps. I'll try to post a video this evening, dropping some flake food in so you can see the flow.
I've also been thinking of adjusting the light cycle to have more light in the evening versus morning, since I get home from work so late.

alysak6075 · Feb 9, 2021

waynel said:
I'll try turning down my flow some. Maybe turning the return pump down to about 1/2 speed and turning off one of the wave pumps. I'll try to post a video this evening, dropping some flake food in so you can see the flow.
I've also been thinking of adjusting the light cycle to have more light in the evening versus morning, since I get home from work so late.

Sounds good! Thats why i run my lights from 2pm, no point lighting the tank earlier since im not around to enjoy it

tnw50cal · Feb 9, 2021

Sebae anemones are not white. A white Sebae anemone is a bleached anemone. It has nothing to provide it with energy. That's where you come in--feed it every day until it gets it's color back--this may take a couple months. There are 2 rules I follow when buying a anemone--at the store it MUST have it's mouth closed and be attached. The attached part is MOST important when buying a LTA. Look at some of my prior posts about the LTA and Beaded anemone I have in a bare bottom tank(most of the time they live in containers with sand/gravel in them). My LTA moves from high high flow to slower flow depending on it's mood. I let it do it's thing( which is mostly tick off the corals in the tank).

jamie1210 · Feb 9, 2021

I don't have experience with crushed coral, so I cannot really comment on that. However, you are on the right track: LTA's love/need a sand bed that's at least 3" deep. I know you also talked about sebae anemones. The term "sebae" is just a generic name that retailers give--any white anemone with purple tips haha. There are actually 2 types: H. crispa, and H. malu. The 2 look very similar, but there is a big difference: H. malu needs sand to bury its foot in (like an LTA), while the other one H. crispa, likes being on a rock. There are many threads on here and RC about IDing an H. malu and H. crispa . Good luck! I feel that they are a very underrated anemone.

tnw50cal · Feb 9, 2021

^^^ yep. The container in the right side of picture is my LTA's deep sand bed. It just moved from the spot in this picture to behind the rock . It doesn't listen to me when I tell it it needs a deep sand bed.

waynel · Feb 9, 2021

Here’s some videos that might show my flow. Is it too much?

waynel · Feb 13, 2021

waynel · Feb 14, 2021

Well, may or may not have been smart, but, I stopped by my LFS yesterday and they had a LTA that looked healthy to me:

It was sticky and the mouth was closed.
I took it home and did a drip acclimation for about 2 hrs.
I turned my lights way down and stopped my wave pumps, turned the return flow almost to zero and made a hole in the sand where I would like it to be (which will probably not be to the anemone's liking):