what happened to my anemone?

[Flavs]

Hi all. Just wanna know what happened to the anemone since I bought. It just expands and contracts day and night. Now it looks pretty ugly tbh. Let the pictures do they talking.

[samuel88]

erm, in case you didn't know anemones expand in the day and contract in the night.

how long has your tank been running? what was its original color?

[Flavs]

I know they expand and contract, but not to this extend

Original colour and the tank has been running for 3weeks. WC every couple of days with water from Irwana.

First pic is when I bought him, second is present.

[iskay]

Your anemone is bleached. Stretching likely because your lights not strong enough. You mentioned your tank is 3 wks old! That's too immature for demanding livestock like anemones. Please equip yourself with the right information else you're just killing livestock unnecessarily.

[Flavs]

I have had it for a month now. Still surviving. I'm just curious why it expands to that shape, never looked like it was dying to me.

So, how long would it take for a "bleached" anemone to die?

[David5077]

Mine anemone also like that and only last one week

[Firestarter]

Your lights are not strong enough for the anemone.

[illumnae]

I'm having a bleaching issue with my RBTA that I bought sometime in January this year. Initially it was great for 2+ months, retaining its original colouration of deep red till early March. This is the colour that it was:

However, as I had a mild aiptasia breakout, I bought 3 peppermint shrimp and added them to the tank. After the shrimp cleared out the aiptasia, they turned on my anemone and started bullying it instead. They stole food from it, and even when there was no food they wouldn't stop picking on it. It came to a point where the anemone was constantly shrivelled up and even took a hike around the tank, though it eventually went back to its original spot.

I have since trapped out and sold the shrimp, but since then, the anemone has lost its colour and bleached out. It now looks like this:

Is my anemone now bleached because of lack of light? Or some other reason? For reference, it is currently placed at the top of the rockwork, 10-15cm below the surface and the light I'm using is the Beamswork 6x 3W led set (2 blue and 4 white). It is positioned almost directly under the 2 blue lights, but due to the led spread it is receiving white light as well.

If it is lack of light, how come it spent 2+ months fine with the deep red colour and only start bleaching after the shrimp bullied it? Some people have suggested too much light...but again, how come it was fine with the lighting previously and only changed when the shrimp bullied it?

I feed it 1-2 times weekly with mysis or chopped up mussel and it always accepts the food (except for the brief period it was shrivelled up due to shrimp bullying). Just fed it today in fact.

Do I need to feed it more or increase/decrease my lighting in order to restore it to its former deep red colour? Having problems finding a suitable light set for this tank due to the lack of clamp on options. Only option now for a better light seems to be the Mazerra Razor nano, but I missed out the 10% offer period already

[sunny03]

Does your anemone stretch to reach out for the lights? As I never us this light set before. Cant really comment on it. Many times reefer conclude that anemone bleach due to light, however there might be other reasons. It could due to lack of certain elements as most of us dose the basic 3 elements most of the times and neglect the rest. You can try dosing iodine, see if it works.

[diki88]

Probably it bleached due to the stress caused by the shrimps and moving around. Just maintain what u did before this and its colour should come back albeit very slowly. Maybe can use brightwell koralcolor also?

[illumnae]

I replenish elements by doing 30% wc every 2 weeks. I also dose Prodibio Nano Reef kit every 2 weeks after wc (which includes Biodigest, Bioptim, Iodine and Strontium. I leave out Reef Booster as it makes my skimmer go crazy). Perhaps I should dose trace elements? I was recommended TLF SeaElements by Ken@Madpetz.

In terms of health of other light loving invertebrates, the ricordea are doing well, and my bird of paradise and jade green digitata survive (but polyps are very clearly brown) The pink birdsnest is showing pale pink nicely in the area of brighter light, but shaded portion is very brown. Hence, overall I think I may need more light (though I still don't understand why the anemone was fine for 2+ months under current lighting).

I guess it could be the stress from the shrimps that caused it to vomit out all its zooxanthellae and bleach.

I have ordered a set of Maxspect Razor Nano which will arrive in 2 weeks. Hopefully I'll be able to be successful with the anemone and SPS with the new lighting.