Nem in a powerhead

[Brett newell]

Well, it finally happened. A nem went into a powerhead. I didnt have a screen or anything because they never moved. I wake up this morning and my black widow had crawled into the PH. He was pretty big and the PH is really small so he had to really try and get in there. I have carbon running on the tank, all the corals look good still and no fish deaths.

I put the nem in a hospital container in the tank. Does it look like he will survive? I've heard of people having them come back even after looking really bad. Kind of a crappy picture, but he his foot is in tact it looks like, he has a few polyps with color but most of them are whitish or almost clear.

 

[NewGoby]

try to get a few more pictures if you can, it's hard to judge from this angle, can you get a picture from the side?

Also - nem's are tanks, killing a nem is very hard, although Power Heads are their main 'predator' in a tank, so to speak

 

[Brett newell]

I tried a few angles and couldn't get a good picture. theres a few small pieces of tentacles in the tank but not many, I'd say less than 10 very small pieces. He has alot of tentacles still on him but only 5 or 6 have color. The foot looks pretty good, cant see the mouth.

 

[NewGoby]

I asked because from the top it looks particulary bad, but if her foot is okay & she doesn't have a lot of gashes through out, then there's hope

 

[Brett newell]

If it's really dead it will rot away pretty fast right? Not very many pieces, she's pretty much in tact just tore up good.

 

[Brett newell]

Here are the only polyps that came off. Should I keep him in a container changing water every few hours floating in the tank. Or put it in a hamster ball?

 

[NewGoby]

if you have put her in a QT, if you don't have one im not sure what would be best

 

[Lance M.]

You'll know when it dies as it will start disintegrating and it will smell terrible when you hold it out of the water.

Your best option is to maintain clean, stable water with appropriate water flow and hope it recovers. I've had a couple get sucked in to my mp40. One recently the night after first placing it in my tank. Got cut in half with a strand holding the two halves together. I put it in a cage I have in the tank with a small rock and it was able to merge the two halves back together and heal itself in a couple weeks. Looks fine now.

Just be sure to watch it and try not to bother it. Do not feed it.

Also, cover your powerheads, if you haven't already.