Lugubrious
Community Member
Hello all, I know this is borderline covered a bit I'm just wondering if anyone can help me with my specific situation.
I just lost my 2nd ritteri and with a replacement coming I need all the help I can get. I'll include as uch detail as possible.
The magnificent sea anenome is what got into reefing. It's what I ultimately decided I was after before having a tank.
The tank is well over a year old now and I've decided it's time. I've kept BTAs successfully no issue. There aren't any other anemones in the tank(aiptsia here and there)
So I order one.
Shows up in relatively rough shape, gaping, slightly hazy water.
He fought me from day one. Never fully inflated but day 1-2 would fluctuate to maybe 50% inflated. This anemone never grabbed its foot and about 4 days in I realized the shipper had torn the foot.
Day 5 the nems melting, melting gone.
A week later I order another one, this one shows up, a much larger ritteri, slightly gaped but clear water in bag.
Acclimate same as first, 30min float, drip and replace 50% water let it refill.
Drop him in, I put him in a crevasse(I didn't know they differed in that sense I do now)
He holds for the day and most of the night. During this first day, dare I say he over-inflated absolutely massive 6" tentacles that were about 1cm diameter at the massive tentacles. Tight puckered mouth, I was extremely happy and optimistic.
Next morning he's 100% deflated and mouth down on the sand. The first ritteri also did the same thing, flopped mouth down to the sand, slightly open mouth
I pick him up and place him on a flat surface right next to where it was previously. Similar but different.
This nem is very responsive at this point, would pucker its mouth right up and grab on, and start to inflate really fast from here.
Following day he was mouth down in some rocks. I believe I should have left it alone at this point instead of trying new rock positions.
Somewhere in the first 3 days my clownfish were hosting it when I woke up in the morning, although he was back on the sand, a heartbreak/spirit boost combo. My clowns have never been in a nem and didn't care about any BTA or the last ritteri, they noticed this one, and kept a close eye on it. They never bothered it again from this day but seemingly stared at it all day just waiting for it to make a health improvement.
Essentially this process repeats every day and gets worse and worse and worse, I set up a hospital tank day 5 or 6 250mg/gal cipro acclimated and put it in. I used water from the display tank.
It basically melted right then and there, next day just a gelatinous mass. The sad part is it's foot was still holding when I pulled it but it was just a mash of nasty. I think my help came too late. I planned on ciproing this one from the beginning but it looked so good for the first two days that I missed my window.
So, the supplier is replacing the one sent with a ripped foot. It should arrive next week, I changed carbon on the DT to clear any nasty hopefully. But I believe the nem melting for a day before transfered caused me to loose a torch.
So with this one coming I just am really after and further tips or absolute donts with ritteri.
I don't know if I'm using too much flow/light and it's running from there, or what, they say high flow and light but high is an arbitrary measurement.
Here's my set up.
It was directly under a kessil a500x but towards the end I pulled it away a little.
About 8" from water surface.
General tank Params as follows.
Nitrate:12
Po4: .07
Alk:10
Mag:1600
Cal:460
Sal:1.026 on ATO
Display is 250 gallons
I don't know why I lost the 2nd nem, maybe I didn't leave it alone it just looked so terrible everything it let go and was on the sand/falling into rock cracks.
I haven't done an ICP in a while I wonder if trace metals or something could do it, both nems seemingly followed the same steps.
I just lost my 2nd ritteri and with a replacement coming I need all the help I can get. I'll include as uch detail as possible.
The magnificent sea anenome is what got into reefing. It's what I ultimately decided I was after before having a tank.
The tank is well over a year old now and I've decided it's time. I've kept BTAs successfully no issue. There aren't any other anemones in the tank(aiptsia here and there)
So I order one.
Shows up in relatively rough shape, gaping, slightly hazy water.
He fought me from day one. Never fully inflated but day 1-2 would fluctuate to maybe 50% inflated. This anemone never grabbed its foot and about 4 days in I realized the shipper had torn the foot.
Day 5 the nems melting, melting gone.
A week later I order another one, this one shows up, a much larger ritteri, slightly gaped but clear water in bag.
Acclimate same as first, 30min float, drip and replace 50% water let it refill.
Drop him in, I put him in a crevasse(I didn't know they differed in that sense I do now)
He holds for the day and most of the night. During this first day, dare I say he over-inflated absolutely massive 6" tentacles that were about 1cm diameter at the massive tentacles. Tight puckered mouth, I was extremely happy and optimistic.
Next morning he's 100% deflated and mouth down on the sand. The first ritteri also did the same thing, flopped mouth down to the sand, slightly open mouth
I pick him up and place him on a flat surface right next to where it was previously. Similar but different.
This nem is very responsive at this point, would pucker its mouth right up and grab on, and start to inflate really fast from here.
Following day he was mouth down in some rocks. I believe I should have left it alone at this point instead of trying new rock positions.
Somewhere in the first 3 days my clownfish were hosting it when I woke up in the morning, although he was back on the sand, a heartbreak/spirit boost combo. My clowns have never been in a nem and didn't care about any BTA or the last ritteri, they noticed this one, and kept a close eye on it. They never bothered it again from this day but seemingly stared at it all day just waiting for it to make a health improvement.
Essentially this process repeats every day and gets worse and worse and worse, I set up a hospital tank day 5 or 6 250mg/gal cipro acclimated and put it in. I used water from the display tank.
It basically melted right then and there, next day just a gelatinous mass. The sad part is it's foot was still holding when I pulled it but it was just a mash of nasty. I think my help came too late. I planned on ciproing this one from the beginning but it looked so good for the first two days that I missed my window.
So, the supplier is replacing the one sent with a ripped foot. It should arrive next week, I changed carbon on the DT to clear any nasty hopefully. But I believe the nem melting for a day before transfered caused me to loose a torch.
So with this one coming I just am really after and further tips or absolute donts with ritteri.
I don't know if I'm using too much flow/light and it's running from there, or what, they say high flow and light but high is an arbitrary measurement.
Here's my set up.
It was directly under a kessil a500x but towards the end I pulled it away a little.
About 8" from water surface.
General tank Params as follows.
Nitrate:12
Po4: .07
Alk:10
Mag:1600
Cal:460
Sal:1.026 on ATO
Display is 250 gallons
I don't know why I lost the 2nd nem, maybe I didn't leave it alone it just looked so terrible everything it let go and was on the sand/falling into rock cracks.
I haven't done an ICP in a while I wonder if trace metals or something could do it, both nems seemingly followed the same steps.
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