Anenome advise

Seeking advise from some experienced amenome people. Last week, I bought a long-tentacled from my LFS. As far as I could tell, it looked healthy in the store. But since is my first anemome, I'm not a great judge. From my research, long-tentacled were supposed to be one of the easier species to keep (along with bubble tip).

The anemone looked fine the first three days. A Claki clown took up residense right away. Howerver, about the fourth day, it started to shrivel. I noticed some tears in the base, and it started to lose some of the orange color. By the sixth day, it was completely dead.

As far as I can tell, all my water parameters are in check (pH=8.2, no ammonia, temp around 78). ~4 watts of power compact per gallon. I have fish and hammer corals, and they seem to be doing fine. I acclimated the anemone using the drip method, and placed the anemome in the sand.

Can anybody think what I did wrong? Or did I just get a sick specimen? I took him back to the LFS, but they refused to even give me store credit. Is this standard on anemomes?

Anyone have any suggestions for future purchases? Of course, I really don't want to have any more die on me. Do you tend to get healthier specimens via mail-order (e.g. liveaquaria.com)? Or is there some other parameter I overlooked?

Any help appreciated.

Hi Mike! Sorry to hear about the loss Sounds to me like maybe it was a sick anemone when you purchased it since it perished so fast. Lighting for these are very important. I currently have a rose bubble tip anemone with 4 watts of power per gallon that is doing great though. I have purchased from Liveaquaria.com and love their 2 week guarantee. I lost a starfish within the two weeks and they were quick to refund my money. Their livestock is very nice also. I also have purchased from petsolutions.com and have found them to be great too. They have a week guarantee though. Personally because of the guarantee I like mail ordering through these guys. My LFS has a 3 day guarantee which isn't so good. Good-Luck and don't give up

Susan

I have raised many long tenticled anemones, and have never lost one so quickly. I'd say that you probably got a sick one, though it is hard to judge by the information you've given. It doesn't sound like there was anything you did that could have caused its death. I am somewhat concerned about the tears. Do you have any brittle stars? The reason why I ask this is because if you have a large one like mine (18', it will attack anemones if it gets hungry enough, or if the anemone is sick. Also, some corals and anemones don't get along, and will actually wage chemical warfare if they get too close to one another. Perhaps if you list all the invertebrates and vertebrates you have, someone here could determine if there was some incompatibility amongst them. It may be a long shot (most likely, it was simply sick), but one that might save you trouble in the future.

George and Susan,

Thanks for you response and words of encouragement. I agree; I think it must have been sick to begin with. I will take your advise, Susan, and get a bubble-tip from liveaquaria. I will wait until I get some metal halides before I get another long tentacle, as I have read they do better with that.

George-nope,don't have brittle stars,etc. I think 'tear' was a bad word choice. I think the tissue just started to weaken and ripped. But I will keep that in mind in the future.

Thanks again!

Mike

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 01:03:09 GMT, 'Susan' < This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it >

In my experience Anemones are like that, sometimes they just don't make it past the first few weeks. And you can scratch your head trying to figure out why, and feel bad to boot.

And if it had a 'tear' in the foot area, in my experience that can have a fairly big effect on it's survival. LFS people can sometimes be impatient about getting them out of the tank or moving them and tear the foot area.

And they do better under adequate light, but you might of purchased a guy that really didn't have a good chance to begin with. So don't beat yourself up too bad over it.

Sounds like it was injured (bruised?) to begin with, so you likely didn't have a chance with this animal. I've kept long tenticled anemones, and have found them to do very well with proper lighting and the right combination of water quality and current (they don't seem to like a lot of strong direct water flow, but so appear to like a mild current flowing over them).