Not for the squeamish - anemone gone bad

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alovely12

Guest
This is not the best way to start any day. Mudplayerx was right on with a prior warning about my carpet anemone.

 

-tara33-

Member
wow thats sad...poor fish but its wierd that a fast yellow tang could do that, they are very quick to swim away. id say it died and fell in the nem
 

calaxa

Member
Yeah tangs are not stupid. He died and fell in. And that carpet can definitely eat that tang. At least he thinks he can and will spit out whatever is leftover. Bet your carpet will grow some after that nice meal.
 

m0nk

Active Member
Sorry for the loss there. I'm with everyone else tho, the tang must have died first, then ended up in the anemone. They move entirely too fast to be subdued so easily. Are you going to replace it with another YT?
 

perfectdark

Active Member
I have to agree with everyone only because I am not too familiar with tangs. How they sleep, their tendencys etc... however, I would not dismiss the probability of the carpet to catch, kill and consume a completely healthy fish. Carpets are one of the top fish killing anemones. They are responsible for more fish deaths than any other anemone, even condy's. And their stings are very potent, they are EXTREMELY sticky to any surface that touches them. JMO...
 

aquaknight

Active Member
I have first hand experience watching a carpet anemone take down two perfectly healthy pajama cardinal. The moment the fish touched the carpet, the anemone completely ENGULFED the fish and closed up like a clam. It then opened so it could eat the fish.
It's like the anemone know's it was a live fish, and not just some food. The anemone wanted the fish. The anemone in the pic is larger then it shows, being folded up like it is. I would say there certainly is a chance the carpet would kill a yellow tang.
alovely12, did you catch the amemone like it is in the photo, with the mouth out and shallowing the tang? Or was it closed up more?
 

maxalmon

Active Member
Thats too bad....
Another reason to keep carpets in a species tank, IMO the tang got to close and got zapped, It happened to one of my black tangs and a blue spotted jaw fish (that was an expensive meal)
a few years ago when I had a carpet...
They are lethal eating machines, thats what they do....
Again sorry for the loss..
 

calaxa

Member
Carpets are deadly and I can see how they capture a slow swimmer like a pajama cardinal, but a Yellow Tang? This fish knows how to defend itself. If it got zapped, that tail would've inflicted some nice wounds back to the carpet. My hippo regularly steals stuff from my sebae. Granted a sebae sting is weak but the principle is the same.
I'm gonna defend your carpet. Not his fault. However, I do think they belong in a species tank cause they can and do kill fish on a regular basis. Only thing safe in there would be clowns.
Sorry for your loss. You must have a big tank to be housing a carpet. I wouldn't even try one in anything smaller than a 150G.
 

perfectdark

Active Member
Originally Posted by calaxa
http:///forum/post/2806366
Carpets are deadly and I can see how they capture a slow swimmer like a pajama cardinal, but a Yellow Tang? This fish knows how to defend itself. If it got zapped, that tail would've inflicted some nice wounds back to the carpet. My hippo regularly steals stuff from my sebae. Granted a sebae sting is weak but the principle is the same.
I'm gonna defend your carpet. Not his fault. However, I do think they belong in a species tank cause they can and do kill fish on a regular basis. Only thing safe in there would be clowns.
Sorry for your loss. You must have a big tank to be housing a carpet. I wouldn't even try one in anything smaller than a 150G.
The problem is if it had gotten stung it ends there, game over. There is no recourse the anemone's stings are potent enough where one zap is all it would take. If it flicked its tail at the anem it would get stung again. No matter how fast the fish is the sting from the anemone is much much faster.
 
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alovely12

Guest
The tank is a 144gal. The anemone is large, and will be moving to a 43 gallon bow front by itself until I find someone that wants it. I bought it from swf because it was recommended for hosting perc. clowns. Needless to say, the clown fish have nothing to do with this anemone. It's funny, this anemone has been "harmless" for two years, and now in a couple of weeks it's attacked a coral and eaten a yt.
By the way, it ate most of the yt with no trouble at all, and spit out the head.
 
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alovely12

Guest
oh, and it was like that when I woke up, but the I suspect the anemone had just reoriented the fish and opened that way. Within minutes, the anemone had "swallowed" him up.
The elapsed time between photos below was exactly 25 minutes.


 

maxalmon

Active Member
I actually watched my carpet nail my black tang, I was moving some powerheads and cleaning the tank, I move some LR and must have spooked the fish as the tang swam just above the carpet and some water current must have moved the carpet just enough, it was over in just a second.......
 

pettyhoe

Member
I have witnessed a large green carpet anenome kill two yellow tangs, both completely healthy. This same anenome almost killed a third, but the tang flung it self out at the last second. It does not have to be dead or even dying for a carpet to take down a healthy fish. Also, with experience handling a number of them, they are extremely sticky, so even if the fish accidentally touched it, it is almost immediately stuck.
 
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