Is my Anemone ok?

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by tobysmurf

Crap, so lesson learned - don't trust the LFS to sell me something healthy...I'll try and get some food for him tomorrow. Any chance I could spot feed him some mysis? That's the only meat based food I have right now. Anyone happen to know a place in Calgary where I can buy silversides?

mysis is just fine ,alots gonna depend on how your system fluctuates and the intensity of your lights

[tobysmurf]

Update: His mouth is back inside where it belongs, but he's still not attaching and of course he's almost completely white.

Also to answer the questions this tank is pretty new, although the camera exposure really made the rocks (and the animal) look whiter than they are. My vodka dosing might be making stuff look white too, I am not certain. My lighting sucks, it's just compact high outputs right now but I have 300 watts of LEDs showing up in the next 2-3 days. We have pretty extreme flow inside the tank (2 x 1200gph power heads and one 2x 1600s). My water tests actually seem quite stable, nothing bad (virtually zero phosphates, ammonia, nitrates, or nitrites). My Calcium is a bit high right now (470) but other than that I think I'm doing pretty well. I will try and spot feed him.

[daniella3d]

wow, this is really bleached. It will need to eat or it will surely die. It does not have a trace of symbiotic algae anylonger.

Does it accept food? this will make the difference between live and death for this creature.

It might not accept food right away. It it is not sebae because of its red foot. Probably a long tentacles. Sand anemone is not a name it's a general term for the types of anemones which live in the sand, like the long tentacles and the sebae.

My sebae was pretty bleached when I got her but now she's huge and dark brown as she should be. I was lucky with this one that she eats like a pig. Previous one was also bleached, did not eat and died in 2 to 3 weeks.

[tobysmurf]

For most of last night he was attached to the side of the tank. This morning I see that he is sitting in that same quiet corner of the tank. His foot isn't fully attached like last night, but it's still partially on the glass and partially on a rock. Last night he ate a metric ton of Mysis, and when I fed soaked algae wafers to the fish the clowns insisted on feeding him some of that as well. His tentacles have lengthened a fair amount from last night so he looks a bit more like his old self again (even though his old self was still a bleached state).

I assume one feeding a day is in order or should I try to do it more often since he's so sick?

[mike31154]

Inverts such as anemones, coral, shrimp, snails, crabs etc. are much more sensitive to even small changes in water chemistry. How did you acclimate the critter? I assume slowly? Perhaps a moot point now since it's been in there for several days now, but improper acclimation to water that is most probably quite different from that of the LFS where it came from would contribute to making it look like it does in photos 2 & 3. From my experience, my LFS keeps salinity a fair bit lower in his tanks than I do in mine. I think this is the case with many LFS, not sure why, just seems to be what they do. In any case, a salinity swing of several points & probably a large difference in pH will not go over well with a freshly introduced invertebrate.

Looks like it's coming around though and the fact that it is eating and at least trying to attach to something bodes well for recovery & survival. Took my bta a while to acclimate as well & it wouldn't take food for weeks. It had a bit more colour than your nem though. First few times it actually held the food I gave it, the tentacles did not have much 'stick' to them & a cleaner shrimp promptly grabbed the food. After a few months the tentacles were much stickier & these days there's no way the cleaner shrimp can even get near my nems to compete for food.

[intarsiabox]

With an orangy base and white tenticles it looks like a Condylactis anemone to me. Once a day feeding should be fine, it will spit out excess food which should be siphoned away. I hope it pulls through for you!

[tobysmurf]

I hope he lives too! His body is very bright red - almost orange. His tentacles are still quite sticky, last night 99% of the Mysis I squirted onto him stayed on his tentacles. I am always careful to feed the fish first so that they are more likely to leave his goodies alone.

As for acclimatizing him to my tank, I did the drip method on him - it took about 3 hours before it finished as my dip was a bit slower than it should have been but I didn't want to shock him since my salinity is a bit high right now (1.026). I will feed him once a day. Thanks again folks, I really appreciate the help and I've certainly learned some valuable lessons about making purchases without adequate research first!

[tobysmurf]

Here is a new pic from tonight. Anyone think he has a hope?

[michaelis88]

this is bleached, try find a way to recover it or try bring back to the store.
Sand Anemone? Ive seen lots of sand anemone, but not one like this. Sand Anemones are more darker color like little tanned and not as white as yours. Maybe your lfs lied to you, Im sure your lfs knows how to tell differents

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by michaelis88

this is bleached, try find a way to recover it or try bring back to the store.
Sand Anemone? Ive seen lots of sand anemone, but not one like this. Sand Anemones are more darker color like little tanned and not as white as yours. Maybe your lfs lied to you, Im sure your lfs knows how to tell differents

Fwiw its a LTA, as mentioned they prefer sand to bury their foot.being bleached doesn't mean the end of the world anyone who has experience with anemones can tell you they get color back fast considering this anemone isn't fully bleached, fully bleached and you can almost see right through it.