Anemone help please

[mshot10]

I have had a few Anemone over the past year. It seems they live for about 4-5 months. I use combi-san and Phyto-plex as additives and have only a Velvet Damsel, Fufi Blue Devil and a Royal Tang in the tank with it A few mushroom polyps and a Pepermint Shrimp. How long should they live? and what could be the reason they aren't surviving long?

 

[col]

What lighting do you have?

 

[sagxman]

Strong light is important for most anemone. Also, water conditions need to be very good. Anemone are difficult to keep in a home aquarium. They say with most that you are not successful with them unless they live for at least one year.
If I am correct, they can live for a few months withering away, living on stored nutrients. They appear to be healthy but really aren't. That's why they say a year for success.

 

[sashimi]

:happyfish
Do you feed your anemones? You should at least once a week.

 

[sagxman]

Along with feeding them, if they have a clown fish that hosts them, the clown will usually feed them. I rarely feed mine because my clown will feed the anemone before it eats its own food.

 

[viper_930]

It seems they live for about 4-5 months.
Not true. Anemones, under proper conditions, should be able to live for many many years.

 

[mshot10]

The lighting I had with the first one was just a standard with the tank. I have increased it because of the desire to attempt to introduce inverts. The Mushroom polyps are surviving well. The anemone not so. The lighting was increased to two compacts that do about 110 watts combined (55w each). This greatly increased my algae level aswell so I added turbo snails. I had some hermit crads and I watched them, they never seemed to bother the anemone, though I did read they could. I have reduced the amount of time I leave the lights on now that the anemone is not my primary concern. I did put some brine shrimp within its area and it seemed to play with it and seemed as if it was eating it. You are correct in that it seemed to wither away over the course of time. I'm really thinking it is a water condition thing but I can't seem to find the cause of it. I occasionally get a little behind on water changes but am pretty religious at 10% a week and 20% every 4th to 6th week. The other 10% is mid week so as not to offset the environement drastically. Thanks for all the help so far this is great. I will be attempting onemore in May, what does anyone suggest as the "easiest"?

 

[sagxman]

If you're going to try one more, get a bubble tip. They seem to be fairly easy to take care of.

 

[elpezgrande]

Since you've had two anemones die in your tank and you aren't exactly sure why, you really should figure out what the problem is before getting another one, or it will suffer the same fate. If you just had a standard NO lighting that came with the tank, and the anemone died after 4 - 5 months, it is quite likely that the lack of lighting caused its death. Despite the fact that you upgraded your lights for the second one, 110W over a 55G tank is just 2 watts per gallon, which is not strong enough for most anemones. So lack of lighting may be what killed your second anemone also. You say you think it was water conditions, how did you come to this conclusion? Did you test your water and find high levels of ammonia or nitrites? If you do plan to get another anemone, as others have said, a BTA would work out best. However, IMO you need to make sure your water parameters are stable and you should at least double your lighting before getting one.