Haddoni’s ‘scrunching’ and deflating

MartinM

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So I’ve had three haddoni carpets for 6 months, and one for about a month. 3 are in one system, and the 4th is in another.

Red Sea:
- All carpets getting 225-275 PAR (LED)
- The red carpet spends 90% of it’s time open and happy. It’s been in captivity for over a year (got it from an LFS that had it for 7 months). It’s only deflated once in 6 months. It does scrunch up at the tips sometimes
- The purple carpet doesn’t deflate much (once a month or so) but it does spend a lot of time ‘scrunched’ (see photos below)
- The blue carpet spends 2-3 days open and happy, and 2-3 days scrunched up/deflated

(When I say deflated, I don’t mean limp and no water, I mainly mean “shrunk“)

ELOS:
- Green carpet, ~200 PAR (Halide/T5)
- Every day it shrinks and deflates and inflates, spends hours looking great, hours shrunk, hours deflated

Some photos

Purple carpet somewhat ‘scrunched’ as opposed to fully open:

38242650-262C-4FB9-B4B3-1A4F14E3E2E9.jpeg


Shrunken green carpet:


A9707B55-6674-434B-9824-5D1C6999E0C2.jpeg


I feed all of them about once a week, and they all have normal feeding response. Is this just carpets being carpets? In my past experience, they tend to stay open and happy most of the time. Input welcome.
 

D-Nak

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Small haddoni behave differently than their larger counterparts. For example, as in your photo, small haddoni like the rockwork, while larger ones prefer to bury their foot in the sand. If it's only deflating once in a while, particularly after eating, then I wouldn't worry about it.

However, if it's the anemone that you've only had for a month, then there might be cause for concern if the it starts to deflate more, which is indicative of an infection.
 
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MartinM

MartinM

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Yep the small one is crawling around the rocks, didn’t know that about the small ones.

All three larger ones definitely have their own personality/inflation/‘scrunch’ cycle. They’re all consistent, even in the timing. I’m just always a little concerned about the blue and purple one because IME, they should all be open/inflated most of the time like the red one is. It’s odd.

I definitely haven’t had good experiences with cipro and haddonis. Mags tolerate it well (and often need it) but haddonis don’t seem to. I sent a healthy red haddoni into a downward spiral that eventually resulted in it’s demise because it was in a QT system with a mags and I treated the mag with cipro.

Would an infection cause a carpet to be open and happy (mouth closed, sticky, growing) for a few days at a time, then scrunched down/closed/hidden beneath the rock for a few days at a time (and repeating this cycle for months)? This is what my blue carpet does. It’s definitely grown since I’ve had it also.

Maybe I’m overthinking this…
 
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MartinM

MartinM

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Oh, any idea if carpets are allelopathic at all? I don’t mean via direct contact, but through chemicals released into the water.
 

D-Nak

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Yep the small one is crawling around the rocks, didn’t know that about the small ones.

All three larger ones definitely have their own personality/inflation/‘scrunch’ cycle. They’re all consistent, even in the timing. I’m just always a little concerned about the blue and purple one because IME, they should all be open/inflated most of the time like the red one is. It’s odd.

I definitely haven’t had good experiences with cipro and haddonis. Mags tolerate it well (and often need it) but haddonis don’t seem to. I sent a healthy red haddoni into a downward spiral that eventually resulted in it’s demise because it was in a QT system with a mags and I treated the mag with cipro.

Would an infection cause a carpet to be open and happy (mouth closed, sticky, growing) for a few days at a time, then scrunched down/closed/hidden beneath the rock for a few days at a time (and repeating this cycle for months)? This is what my blue carpet does. It’s definitely grown since I’ve had it also.

Maybe I’m overthinking this…
What I've found is that once a haddoni is infected, it usually dies within a couple of weeks. They seem to get hit harder than other anemones, but they are also hardier, meaning they're less likely to get sick but once they do it's usually a death sentence.

All carpets behave different -- both haddoni and gigantea -- where some like to lay flat while others have more of a wavy disposition.

If you can share some photos on a good day and what you consider a bad one, we can help to better access the health of the haddoni.
 

D-Nak

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Oh, any idea if carpets are allelopathic at all? I don’t mean via direct contact, but through chemicals released into the water.
I think they are to a certain extent. I don't think that they're out to kill each other, more of a note that they're there and to keep their distance. I have multiple gigantea in a tank and one is always bigger than the others, no matter how much I feed the others. I don't know if it's dominance via allelopathy, but I can see the physical size difference.
 
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MartinM

MartinM

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IMG_1315.jpeg
IMG_1325.jpeg
IMG_1328.jpeg

So the blue one will spend 1-3 days down in the rock (it’s ‘buried’ it’s foot in the rock) and 1-3 days open. It’s been repeating this cycle for months.

The purple one doesn’t deflate, but it is usually kind of ‘scrunched’ and not big and open like the red one. I feel like it’s slowly shrinking over time, and/or not opening as fully. :(.

The red one is always wide open.

I run 50CC of Seachem Matrix carbon and 50CC of their seagel which is changed weekly, and monthly 50% water changes. All anemones are fed about 1-2x/week with raw shrimp, scallop, and/or fish, and the tank is fed heavily with a liquid mixture of phyto, roti-feast, oyster-feast, and Red Sea AB+. Sometimes the purple one isn’t that sticky (maybe 25% of the time), the other two always are. Dosing two part (C-balance) so the major elements are covered. There are no fish, although I recently added three periclemenes anemoneshrimp, and there are sexy shrimp, Pom Pom crab, three goniopora colonies, several zooanthid varieties, various hitchhiking crabs, oysters, and three maxima clams as tank mates.

Thoughts?
 
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D-Nak

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It looks like it doesn’t doesn’t have enough space to fully open. It’s needs space in the sand bed.
 
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MartinM

MartinM

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The purple would have to open more vertically (which it used to do). Do you think moving it into my larger tank would be a good idea? I’m a little wary about moving it. A month after I got it, it spent weeks before it would attach again (I posted a thread here in February about this).
 
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MartinM

MartinM

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Highly considering moving it to my big tank (ELOS 200XL, ~200 gallons)…I’m just afraid it will kill my boxfish
 
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MartinM

MartinM

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Update:

Removed/re-arranged the work work to make more room for the anemones, switched to a VolxJapan GrassyCore LED from the Red Sea ReefLED (I hate the ‘any color you want, as long as it’s blue’ from all the mainstream LEDs anyway, I was just using it temporarily, the GrassyCore has a *much* better spectrum), and made more room for them. I’m glad to say there’s noticeable improvement and much less deflating! Thanks for all the help
 
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