What’s happening to my long tentacle anemone???

[Bolen2]

I’ve had this LTA for about 3 months now and it appeared to be thriving the entire time Ive had it but in the last few days it started to look pretty bad. I placed it in this shell the day I got it to give it something to latch on to until it could find somewhere to settle but it stayed out and has been there ever since. Well I came in to check on it in the night and I see that it has crawled out and looks like this! Is it dying? Please help!

System Is an upgrade running 5-6 months from a 2 year old system. The anemone is sitting on added dry rock to fill empty space from the upgrade. Image is under white light I typically run a white/blue mix.

Perameters:

Salt: 1.026
PH: 8
Nitrate: 10
Nitrite: 0.5
Cal: 450

 

[leonardomanzano]

it looks bleached, has it been that color since you got it?

 

[dvgyfresh]

Agree looks bleached , also nitrite reading isn’t harmful but suspect possible ammonia ? Have you tested for it ? Have you been feeding it?

 

[Bolen2]

I have been feeding and I have tested for ammonia with no readings. My testing kit isn’t the best and only reads in 0.5 intervals. The color was there but not at the point that 0.5 shows on the chart so I would assume it is not truly at that level. Maybe around the 0.25 - 0.3 level. I have been feeding weekly and it has been eating. I had a pair of Clarkii clowns hosting it and they were being extremely aggressive over it and it seemed to be shrinking so I removed them from the system in hopes it would make a turn around and for a while it appeared to be making improvements. It has been that color since I’ve had it and it is beginning to regain its color in some areas. Particularly on the tentacles and a little on the oral disc. I received it from LiveAquaria and other than the bleaching it appeared to be perfectly healthy and I assumed given time and care it would regain its coloration which it has been.

 

[dvgyfresh]

It does look unfortunately bleached but can definitely come back. What test kits are you using ? I’d reccomend Hanna / salifert. Any ammonia reading would be harmful to the nem , make sure it is a 0 reading , as for foods I would feed things contain zooxanthelle to help rebuild the population like reef roids

 

[leonardomanzano]

I have been feeding and I have tested for ammonia with no readings. My testing kit isn’t the best and only reads in 0.5 intervals. The color was there but not at the point that 0.5 shows on the chart so I would assume it is not truly at that level. Maybe around the 0.25 - 0.3 level. I have been feeding weekly and it has been eating. I had a pair of Clarkii clowns hosting it and they were being extremely aggressive over it and it seemed to be shrinking so I removed them from the system in hopes it would make a turn around and for a while it appeared to be making improvements. It has been that color since I’ve had it and it is beginning to regain its color in some areas. Particularly on the tentacles and a little on the oral disc. I received it from LiveAquaria and other than the bleaching it appeared to be perfectly healthy and I assumed given time and care it would regain its coloration which it has been.

I'm currently in the same boat as you but instead of an LTA, it's a BTA, constantly feeding it small food such as baby brine shrimp/Mysis shrimp would be the best route to go. Since the anemone no longer has the zooxanthellae
algae its main source of energy is gone so regular feedings is pretty much a must.
at least that's what the other internet people say on the internet.

 

[Bolen2]

I use an API test kit for mine. As I said I have an ammonia reading of 0 so I don’t think that’s the issue. I’m only getting nitrate and nitrite readings. But I do actually target feed it reef roids as well as fresh scallops.

 

[Bolen2]

I'm currently in the same boat as you but instead of an LTA, it's a BTA, constantly feeding it small food such as baby brine shrimp/Mysis shrimp would be the best route to go. Since the anemone no longer has the zooxanthellae
algae its main source of energy is gone so regular feedings is pretty much a must.
at least that's what the other internet people say on the internet.

I also have a BTA but it’s doing great. I haven’t seen it do anything strange at all. It’s very small but it looks perfectly healthy.

 

[Bolen2]

Update: it came completely off the shell so I took it away. It’s now just laying on its side on the rock. It is opening up a little better but it seems like it’s just not wanting to grab hold of anything with its foot now.

 

[leonardomanzano]

Update: it came completely off the shell so I took it away. It’s now just laying on its side on the rock. It is opening up a little better but it seems like it’s just not wanting to grab hold of anything with its foot now.

generally from my experience especially with my LTA they normally like to ground their foot in the sand which is why its recommended to have a fairly deep sand bed for LTAs. I've had mine settle in the crevice of rock once but it only did that for 2 days.

for now, leave it on the sand bed and let it do its own thing. Make sure that your powerhead won't end up shredding it if it's being carried by the water flow. I would recommend turning off the wave pumps for a few hours until it settles down. Mine generally finds its new spot after 3 hours.

make its in a low flow area!

 

[ReefRondo]

I’ve yet to find a non bleached anemone for sale in Scotland. Mine all coloured up really well eventually. Bleaching in anemones IME has never caused issue. Just keep it well away from power heads. I lost an entire tank due to one of these wandering into a gyre one night. Total disaster.

 

[leonardomanzano]

I’ve yet to find a non bleached anemone for sale in Scotland. Mine all coloured up really well eventually. Bleaching in anemones IME has never caused issue. Just keep it well away from power heads. I lost an entire tank due to one of these wandering into a gyre one night. Total disaster.

how many have you saved with just letting them be? how long did it take for them to regain color?

i redid my rockwork today and the bleached BTA I had fallen to the very bottom of the tank so feeding it effectively will be very difficult

how big was the anemone that crashed your tank? did you try seachem prime when you had the ammonia spike? I have a bottle near my tank in case I see the death of an anemone but im not sure if it will actually do anything.

This is the closest I got to a shredded anemone. He would've died that day if he wasn't so sticky.

 

[ReefRondo]

Every Anemone I have ever bought apart from the one that wandered into my gyre is still alive today and some have split multiple times and I have 5 or so now. They got their colour back within a few months. The malu that crashed my tank was about a foot across fully inflated and it was not the ammonia that did it, it was the stripping of oxygen. I was sitting at my desk and all was fine, did 5 minutes work and went to go to the toilet and it looked like somebody had poured a bucket of milk into my tank and all my tangs were already dead. Never seen anything like it to be honest. One was still alive but on the sand breathing really heavily and died a few mins later in my already running quarantine tank.

 

[ZoWhat]

As soon as I read a Nitrite reading I immediately assume it's API testing.

Garbage product. I suggest buying Hanna or Salifert

 

[Steve and his Animals]

The everted mouth might indicate a bacterial infection of the body cavity, which is common in larger anemone species.

Protocol for using antibiotics to treat infected anemones

This is a re-post of what I wrote in ReefCentral on 3/09/2013 Many anemone keepers know, the collection and shipping process from ocean to local fish store (LFS) is a stressful event. Most host anemones do not survive this process without help, especially H. magnifica and S. gigantea. Other...

www.reef2reef.com

This might be a good read. If you don't have the listed antibiotics, I've heard of people using metronidazole as kanamycin as well.

 

[Bolen2]

Update: made its way to the sand bed but this is what it looks like the next day.

 

[dvgyfresh]

Update: made its way to the sand bed but this is what it looks like the next day.

Not looking great , do you have any cipro ? May need some

 

[Bolen2]

Yeah it died. I found it laying in its side in the sand and it was starting to ooze. When I grabbed it to pull it out it just started falling apart. I put a good dose of ammonia detoxifier in the system to make sure everything was good and everything seems to be doing great. My little BTA is opened up and enjoying the light so I’m guessing it didn’t effect my system much. It’s disappointing because it was a really nicely sized LTA and looked like it was doing great for a while. Thanks for the tips everyone. I guess it was a learning experience

 

[leonardomanzano]

Yeah it died. I found it laying in its side in the sand and it was starting to ooze. When I grabbed it to pull it out it just started falling apart. I put a good dose of ammonia detoxifier in the system to make sure everything was good and everything seems to be doing great. My little BTA is opened up and enjoying the light so I’m guessing it didn’t effect my system much. It’s disappointing because it was a really nicely sized LTA and looked like it was doing great for a while. Thanks for the tips everyone. I guess it was a learning experience

that sucks, sorry for your loss.

At least you were able to get to it before it spread everywhere.

 

[Steve and his Animals]

Yeah it died. I found it laying in its side in the sand and it was starting to ooze. When I grabbed it to pull it out it just started falling apart. I put a good dose of ammonia detoxifier in the system to make sure everything was good and everything seems to be doing great. My little BTA is opened up and enjoying the light so I’m guessing it didn’t effect my system much. It’s disappointing because it was a really nicely sized LTA and looked like it was doing great for a while. Thanks for the tips everyone. I guess it was a learning experience

Sad, but a learning experience like you said. Get used to the idea that quarantining and treating wild anemones when they are freshly acquired is important, mainly larger species like LTA's, large carpets, and ritteris.