Basic Help?

[John Caezza]

Hey! I was recently at my local ***** to pick up some clownfish for a new tank I'm setting up and decided to buy an anemone to go with them. I have never worked with anemones before, and didn't do research on them until after I picked this one up. I think its a bubble tip, but the store didn't specify. Its been in the tank about four days, and it has climbed up the wall to the top, where I can see parts of the bottom of its foot just from looking down into the water. Is this a bad sign?

I also noticed a small ring around the foot, it almost looks like cotton. Is this bad as well?

Thanks for any help.

 

[jay0705]

Never buy from *****. that said, I have a very basic understanding w nems. They do need good water quality and good lighting. If your lighting is low this could be why its so high in your tank. They will move to a preferred spot

 

[flower]

Hi, welcome to the site...

A new tank you are setting up? Please tell me you did not buy a tank and fish at the same time. A new tank MUST cycle before you can add any kind of life. The anemone is dying if you see cotton looking stuff oozing from it and it's not attached.

 

[Bryce E]

Yeah they can constantly move around in a new tank until they find the spot that they like... Don't let this concern you.. with the exception that they can put themselves in harms way with some pumps and overflows. This can go on from hours, to days to weeks. My last one took 2 weeks of running around till he found the spot he liked and hasn't moved ever since. But don't be surprised if they do again one day. And I do believe that the bulb tips move around more than most.

The main thing you want to watch for is if he is "opening up" or not. They will inflate to their full size when they are happy. That being said don't panic right away if they look shriveled up either because they shrink way down for a variety of reasons and especially when they release waste and then they return to normal again. But that can be a slow process. But if he doesn't open up then you have problems. Jay is correct that they are going to require good lighting as well as medium flow and really good water quality. Anemone's are one of those things that I never add to a tank too soon. I always prefer to add them to an aged system. How long has your new tank been set up? Has it completely cycled? do you have a test kit? Just know that they will certainly not tolerate things like ammonia and nitrite... even higher nitrate and phosphate is no bueno.

And I couldn't tell you anything about the ring you mentioned without seeing it. Can you post a picture?

 

[John Caezza]

To answer your concerns, I have set up five tanks before, I have just not worked with anemones previous to now, the tank has been running for two months or so. Another thing is when I try to feed the nem, it seems to chew up the food and spit it out after. Are the pieces I'm feeding too big? I have tried raw (frozen and thawed) shrimp and scallop, both about 1/4 - 1/2 an inch in diameter. I'll attach pictures of the nem for size comparison.
The other thing is it seems to be opened up fully, or at least it is most of the time.

Water levels come out to be
Nitrate: about 4
Nitrite: 0
Total Alkalinity (KH) ppm: 200
PH: 8.4
Ammonia: 0
Salinity: 1.026

A side note: Can anyone identify the type of nem this is? The store just labeled it as "anemone", and the employees couldn't tell me. Also, the trunk/foot looks longer in the pictures, the bottom of the foot is attached to the glass so it looks longer than it really is.
Well this is a problem, it says the images are too large to upload? Anyone know a way around that?

 

[pegasus]

If you have Microsoft Paint, open the picture in it (right click on the picture, left click Open With). Click the resize button at the top left. If the picture's original size is 3 MB or larger, change the value in the top box from 100 to 50. It will automatically change the value in the second box. This will make the picture less than 1 MB, which is plenty small enough to upload. Once you've resize it, click the blue tab (top/far left), and choose Save As... choose JPEG, and if preferred, the location to save in. That's it... upload the saved picture.

 

[Bryce E]

Unless you are trying to upload from your cell. Then I have to take a screen shot of my picture to reduce the size

 

[John Caezza]

Thanks, here they are.

Since I posted the original thread, the "cotton stuff" seems to have stopped coming out, but it is still attached, its wedged between the nem and the glass so the current can't grab it. Should I remove it?

 

[Bryce E]

No. I would just leave it be. The "oozing" doesn't look too bad. Especially if there seems to be improvement. Was he attached to something when you bought him and the person at ***** pulled him off of whatever he was attached to? That can damage the foot and can often times result in their death if you're not very careful.

You did say that it does fully open up during the day though right? That is going to be your first indication of it's overall health.

And that looks like a Condylactis aka Hatian anemone to me. They may deflate a couple of times per week and purge water and suck in clean water so if you see this happening a lot then you'll want to look at you parameters and will likely need to do a water change. If it is a Condy then they do require strong lighting and you don't want to exceed 78 to 79 degrees on your tank... salinity is recommended to be between 1.023 and 1.025

You will also want to supplement Iodine and other trace elements every so often.

Hope that helps... good luck.