help with anemone and clown!

[drummerboy]

I see that this topic has just been sort of discussed, but I have a new question, and I need help! I got a ritteri anemone yesterday, and after it got aclimated I was very pleased. It started to puff up it's tenticals and looked great all night until about three in the afternoon today. Now it's all deflated and looking very poorly. And though my two false percula clowns didn't touch it all yesterday, one of them is now diving into the mouth of the anemone and it looks like he is acctually eating parts of it. He'll dive down into the mouth and come out with things in his mouth. Is this a normal activity? Is this why my anemone suddenly deflated? Thank you for reading this and your help.

 

[justinl]

Keep an eye on your anemone. The mouth shouldn't be open all the time. If it is that's a bad sign.
If the clowns only nip when the mouth is open, and the anemone's mouth is usually closed, then all the clowns are doing is nipping at the waste coming from the mouth of the anemone as it expels what it doesn't want or has digested.

 

[jakob4001]

anemones tend to cycle; they'll enflate & deflate on a regular basis trying to reach homestasis or simply expelling waste...you may want to target feed it occasionally as well; try getting some ghost shrimps if LFS carries them; clowns may even capture a fw & feed them to it

 

[drummerboy]

Thanks for your help, yeah, it does seem to have gone through a cycle, it's inflated again, and now the clownfish have really dove into it. I really hope that I can keep it alive, I've heard bad things about keeping anemones-even in optimal conditions, but I really wanted to give it one chance. I mean it was going to go to someone's tank, and I figure that I can give it great water and a good home, so it might as well come home with me.