Anemone Dying

[patrick123]

Anyone knows why my anemone keep dying when other corals and fishes are doing well? I have a 6ft tank and I keep mostly LPS and softies. I have 1 hammer, 1 frogspawn, 2 leather, 3 mushrooms, a few softies and 5 anemones. The rest of the stock are looking healthy except the anemone. So far 4 of them died. I have 3 tangs as well as they are all ok.

Please advise.

Thanks,

Patrick

[JustinK]

What kind of anemone are you keeping? Lighting and feeding? I hope you haven't been shifting them around too much cos alot of them die that way. Do you notice any tissue damage on ur anemone? think it will be better to provide more information before anyone can pinpoint anything...

[patrick123]

Using MH light. Not moving them. They just out of sudden died. Feeding is small piece of shrimp. BTW, I used to have 5 anemone. They are 2xgreen, 1xbrown, 1xpink, 1white. I read somewhere that there is a chemical warefare between different species of anemone. Is this the cause of the anemone dying?

[giantbicycle]

issit a bubble tip anemone , a plate anemone , a carpet anemone....etc ???

[ajeb]

if your anemone is dying .. it is better to take precaution by taking it out since it can caused your tank being polluted. Actually anemone need a mature tank ... how old is ur tank? It is suggested that anemone sld be kept in a tank more than a year old.

[ben]

hi pat,

Sorry to reply so late. hows the rest of the anemones? As I know u are very new to the hobby and ur tank is too new to house an anemone. Furthermore u had 5 anemones in ur tank and thats bad if if have no experience at all. Anemone are one of the most sensitive living creatures in marine. There are too much to learn about them. Furthermore as I know u are working outstation so u can really monitor and take care of them. I dont think ur wife is capable in helping u that too.

I advised u to give up on all the anemones for a period and survey thru infos on them first. I know u are hooked with the anemones and nemos likings but u have to control first, hehe. After u are really ready for anemones, start with one only and learn from there. After several months, bout 6 mths, u will know them better if u learn fast. After u are sure, u can stock more anemones.

Usually 5% of anemone owners managed to rare anemone for more than 1 year.

10% managed to keep them alive for 9 mths to 1 year.

20% managed to keep them alive for 6 to 9 months.

The rest of people kill those poor anemones within less than half year.

Lots of people kill them within 1 month so u are not the opnly one. Dont feel dissapointed, u will soon succeed when have patience.

Well, u can ask me for infos as I wont considered myself good but I managed to rare my anemones for more than 1 year. Only last 1 week, I gave up my tons of anemone tank to a friend and left only 3 anemones to myself. I missed my anemones, but thats too much, 35 small anemones! Wasting my tons of time feeding them.

Again, advised u to surf more on infos and buy some books to read about them.

Hope this helps alot

[patrick123]

hi pat,

Sorry to reply so late. hows the rest of the anemones? As I know u are very new to the hobby and ur tank is too new to house an anemone. Furthermore u had 5 anemones in ur tank and thats bad if if have no experience at all. Anemone are one of the most sensitive living creatures in marine. There are too much to learn about them. Furthermore as I know u are working outstation so u can really monitor and take care of them. I dont think ur wife is capable in helping u that too.

I advised u to give up on all the anemones for a period and survey thru infos on them first. I know u are hooked with the anemones and nemos likings but u have to control first, hehe. After u are really ready for anemones, start with one only and learn from there. After several months, bout 6 mths, u will know them better if u learn fast. After u are sure, u can stock more anemones.

Usually 5% of anemone owners managed to rare anemone for more than 1 year.

10% managed to keep them alive for 9 mths to 1 year.

20% managed to keep them alive for 6 to 9 months.

The rest of people kill those poor anemones within less than half year.

Lots of people kill them within 1 month so u are not the opnly one. Dont feel dissapointed, u will soon succeed when have patience.

Well, u can ask me for infos as I wont considered myself good but I managed to rare my anemones for more than 1 year. Only last 1 week, I gave up my tons of anemone tank to a friend and left only 3 anemones to myself. I missed my anemones, but thats too much, 35 small anemones! Wasting my tons of time feeding them.

Again, advised u to surf more on infos and buy some books to read about them.

Hope this helps alot

Ben,

Have not spoken to you for a while. Thanks so much for the reply. Now I'm down to 2 anemones. One is quite stable....keeps growing. It is about 1foot dia now. The other one is funny. Every morning will be "chow tah", and evening when the MH lightt is on, it will recover. It happens everyday, so I just kind of leave it.

Some senior reefer here is offering me a red RBTA about 1 foot dia. It is very healthy in his tank, I'm not sure if I will kill it if I buy over. Thinking of changing about 20% of water this weekend and put some carbon. Hopefully will be ok with the RBTA. What do you think?

Thanks,

Patrick

[ben]

Yeah, long time havent talked to u since u aeroplane me with the chiller. LOL.

I have to waste $80 to sell this chiller to a reefer friend.

Oh well, I learnt my lesson not to trust anyone, LOL. What bygone is bygone. Im forgetful and forgiving type,

I advised do not stock anymore anemone. U will tend to kill it after certain time although its healthy now. So u are the one who got the RBTA, LOL.

I suggest u give away that chow tah anemone away asap to prevent a crash in the tank. Die-off anemone will crash ur tank if not taken out asap. Ur wife able to survey everyday when she is at home? Better that way if she knows how to see anemone's condition. BTW sometimes we wont know an anemone condition by looking. Maybe color still OK but the health inside is bad. Remember, patience is virtue.

For ur info, my wife does survey for me on the anemone too when Im working. The very first anemone I buy actually is very bad condition. The LFS also afraid it will die off. So I bought and try out, and managed to saved it. Now had been 1 year + and still healthy. Till now, I have saved 3 anemones altogether but the other 2 had gave my friend along with the other anemones.

U said ur anemone is growing, I doubt it is. It just expanding to its original size. Anemone dont grow so fast like some corals or animals.

By replaing water every week wont settled everything. U have to have test kits to do measurements. I think u have to teach ur wife how to do it so she can measure every 3 days. Why 3 days, u have too much anemone load and not enough experience yet with the water conditions in your tank.

Placing carbon will help too but will absorb most trace elements too. U have to top up frequently on these elements. Anemone absorbs very high amount of elements, carbon, Calcium, .........

It depends on what type of anemone, some do not require high lighting as they dont have that zooxanthellae which required intense lighting to survive. If they have no zooxanthellae, u have to feed them very frequently. At least 3 days once as they feed very much in the wild. The ones with zooxanthellae needs only feeding every week and some dont need to eat for long time if your lighting and water parameters are excellent.

[FuEl]

Tested your nitrate levels? Nitrate is one thing that anemones don't tolerate very well.

[patrick123]

Yeah, long time havent talked to u since u aeroplane me with the chiller. LOL.

I have to waste $80 to sell this chiller to a reefer friend.

Oh well, I learnt my lesson not to trust anyone, LOL. What bygone is bygone. Im forgetful and forgiving type,

I advised do not stock anymore anemone. U will tend to kill it after certain time although its healthy now. So u are the one who got the RBTA, LOL.

I suggest u give away that chow tah anemone away asap to prevent a crash in the tank. Die-off anemone will crash ur tank if not taken out asap. Ur wife able to survey everyday when she is at home? Better that way if she knows how to see anemone's condition. BTW sometimes we wont know an anemone condition by looking. Maybe color still OK but the health inside is bad. Remember, patience is virtue.

For ur info, my wife does survey for me on the anemone too when Im working. The very first anemone I buy actually is very bad condition. The LFS also afraid it will die off. So I bought and try out, and managed to saved it. Now had been 1 year + and still healthy. Till now, I have saved 3 anemones altogether but the other 2 had gave my friend along with the other anemones.

U said ur anemone is growing, I doubt it is. It just expanding to its original size. Anemone dont grow so fast like some corals or animals.

By replaing water every week wont settled everything. U have to have test kits to do measurements. I think u have to teach ur wife how to do it so she can measure every 3 days. Why 3 days, u have too much anemone load and not enough experience yet with the water conditions in your tank.

Placing carbon will help too but will absorb most trace elements too. U have to top up frequently on these elements. Anemone absorbs very high amount of elements, carbon, Calcium, .........

It depends on what type of anemone, some do not require high lighting as they dont have that zooxanthellae which required intense lighting to survive. If they have no zooxanthellae, u have to feed them very frequently. At least 3 days once as they feed very much in the wild. The ones with zooxanthellae needs only feeding every week and some dont need to eat for long time if your lighting and water parameters are excellent.

Ben,

Thanks for the advise on the anemone.

Seriously speaking, I didn't know it was too late to cancel order since it was only one day after. I didn't even know you have spent $80 because of my "aeroplane". When I passed the message to you, I didn't hear back from you so I thought it was ok. I sincerely apologize for the mistake. If you want, I can pay you back the $80.

I guess it is a growing pain. After being aeroplane by a few people, I'm also learning not to give promise to people unless I'm really sure I want the stuff. It has been working pretty well since.

In any case, I'm starting to feel that the SRC is getting too commercial and too many people who are here with commercial interest. So may be soon I will be fading away too.

Best Regards,

Patrick

[Vinceire]

Hi,

I am keeping a Purple tip Anemone for about 2 years and has grown quite significantly throughout this period.

What I observe is that Anemone need moderate to strong lightning and water flow.

They will move or "walk" around until they find a suitable place usually in high flow area (near PH or tunze - result of many Anemone shake.)

If your anemone is alway moving around, it means that the water condition is not right for it either water quality/lightning and flow.

Just my 2 cents.

Cheers,

Vinceire

[ben]

WOW, Patrick, u are truthfully sincere. Yeah, I have been aeroplane by a lot when reached the buyer or seller place, they gaves reasons, most will said forgotten due to too good response and mixed up. But never lost on cash before, except your case.

If u willing to pay me back my lost, its good. U can pm me for the arrangements. It will cure my pain and lost on that history month, hehe.

Depends on types of anemone, some likes high intense lighting, some likes high flow and some prefer hidden places more. It really depends on the species type.

The types which like intense lighting and high flow will move to its favorite spot unless u have placed to the best spot. Same as the othertypes that will move to their place of likings.

Monitoring is essential in keeping anemone. U have to know its characteristc and knowledge on this species. At first I go beserk when my anemones run here and there but nowadays after so much experiences, I know which anemones likes where best. So whenever I rescape or water change, I will place it there or a better spot, they all never move and happy! So this means all of my monitorings pay off well.

Bout the SRC memebers here being commercialised, u are not the only one I know who said that. I know lots of the old memebers and they had faded away long ago. This is normal. I have started to login less nowadays too.

[Kaf]

Hi Ben,

I'm new in this forum but after reading your thoughts on anemone.

I'll like to ask what sort of current and lighting does a bubble tip anemone prefered?

I'm trying to get an anemone for my crown fish.

Thanks.

Kevin

[borinz]

eh... also new to anemone here... would like to ask does anemone's colour fates off?? mine is pink when i saw in the LFS but when i bought it back... the pink is mostly gone... but i doun think its dying coz it opens up everyday...only the colour fates off... can anyone tell me how to bring the colour back? BTW my anemone dun eat market prawns one... i feed live plankton to all my coral...

[terryansimon]

Usually 5% of anemone owners managed to rare anemone for more than 1 year.

10% managed to keep them alive for 9 mths to 1 year.

20% managed to keep them alive for 6 to 9 months.

The rest of people kill those poor anemones within less than half year.

Lots of people kill them within 1 month so u are not the opnly one. Dont feel dissapointed, u will soon succeed when have patience

is it? they don't call anemones one of the hardiest coral ever for fun.

most anemones don't really like areas of highflow. if you notice, most anemones in LFS actually hide BEHIND the outflow pipe area. this is the area where there is the least flow, but still a bit of turbulence to stimulate it.

as for lighting....it really depends on the individual anemones I suppose. some love to sunbathe beneath a light source, others love to hide a little bit and expose a portion of themselves *like mine* and some just love to hide away. but be careful of those that hide away. it may be due to a strong current blowing at the prefered spot. because of the anemone placement in my tank, I had to reduce the flow of my Tunzes by quite a bit.

get your wife or somebody to feed the anemone regularly once it is locked into place. this would convince the bugger that it can get food and it will stick its foot there and hold it there. like one small piece of prawn every few days. if you want yours to grow big and fat, feed it every other day....or if you are willing, every day also can. (=

[marinecraz]

have one anemone died and two others always 'chow tar'. but they are ok and open nicely after i maintain pH at 8.2 - 8.3 by adding reef buffer.

check your pH. it might help. my 2 cents worth

[minsmarine]

My 1foot BTA Green Die, because snail always distrub him.

In my case, it's snail is the clupit, they always go and distrub so BTA has no choice keep moving moving moving till stuck in the PH and could not moved and snails distrub him by ( i guess eating tips ). And I was away and the person taking care though it's normal and when I came back from the trip, I saw him only half left and gone to heave/hell.

Just my experience

[FuEl]

Don't feed anemones too often. Once a week is pretty much sufficient. Anything more & you'll be killing it with love.. This applies especially to newly introduced anemones. After they have replaced all their nematocyst cells that have been lost during shipping and have acclimated to their surroundings, you can feed them twice a week but not more than that. Anemones use up alot of energy to digest their meals. If they spend more energy digesting their meals than what they can gain during photosynthesis, it will not be a very good thing. Different types of anemones prefer different foods. For instance carpet anemones prefer bigger chunks of food like a whole market prawn while bubble-tip anemones in nature consume small zooplankton like rotifers, etc. Rarely are the stings of bubble-tip anemones strong enough in the wild to capture significantly large sized prey. Different anemones will prefer different substrates. Tube & carpet anemones like to burrow their foot into FINE substrate in the wild. Bubble tip anemones can be found naturally on reefs. It is best to duplicate their environment in which they are found in if not most anemones will not survive for long.

Do notE that most anemones are not treated in the best of conditions upon arrival. Most farms/LFS simply empty all anemones into a tub of water regardless of species. This is one of the main reasons why it's hard to get a healthy specimen. Mixing of different species of anemones in tubs even for the shortest of periods will trigger massive nematocyst warfare (due to glutathione released by anemones during stress, which serves as a signal for nematocysts to fire). The result is simply weakened anemones that are made available to the hobbyists.

[Kaf]

Thanks for the info Fuel.

The LSF I went to had 3 different type of anemone in a tub.

All 3 arrived today. Am interested in the bubble tip but now am not sure if I should get it now since I'm new and not sure if I can handle the weakened anemone.

Thanks

[neokn]

Pardon me, FuEl.

I read somwhere on the web that only colour anemone (especially red, yellow and etc) does photosynthesis with light. Anemone that are white in colour, depend greatly on food.

[kschew1498]

Hi Fuel.....thats a very good piece of infor......

By the way I have a Tube anemone.....and it has been with me for 10 month already.......

I used to have 2 bubble tip anemone (1 pink tip & 1 yellow) and 2 tube anemone......only this purple tube anemone survive!.....I suspect there isnt enough lights as I was then using only 2 X 10kk FL lights.....now my tube anemone has its tail/base stuck to a piece of LR....kekeke

I only feed the tube anemone 2 times a week with dry prawns (Hay Bee).....

I found anemone pretty annoying as it move all over the place until they can find a suitable space....and hopefully it is accessible to your hands as you probably need to hand feed them......hehehe....also pretty keen to get another.....

Just my observation.......

[FuEl]

Tube anemones are not photosynthetic...but it does'nt hurt them if you place them under light as it does not affect them in any way. The other types of anemones will require lights. Even the pest anemones like majano anemones require light.

White anemones can be bleached. Such anemones should be avoided as they will have a hard time recovering especially if your tank parameters are not in top notch conditions. All anemones will need to be fed as they are all carnivorous to some extent. The concern would be how often.

Beware of brightly colored anemones and other such corals. The bright yellow anemones, scroll corals, goniopora are all DYED. Such corals normally don't survive for long. Once they lose the dye they tend to expel their zooxanthellae and bleach to death.