Sick Anemone?

After reading your other posts on the message board, I learned that this is a new tank and you recently moved everything over to the tank - not just the anemone.  And that you have a strong freshwater background (like most of us here).  As you have stated, saltwater and freshwater are very different.  One thing that is different is how you move everything from one tank to another.  If you did it correctly, the tank is still 6 months old.  If you didn't do it right, the tank is back in the cycling mode again because there will be some die-off in the liverock.  If this is the case, you need to be doing ammonia checks and 10-20% water changes weekly for at least a month (depending on your ammonia levels).

 

 

I've had 7 different anemones, so I've some experience with anemones - but certainly not as much as others on the board.  (I really just have them because of all my clownfish pairs.)  So here's my opinion about your anemone, hopefully someone else will chime in and verify it.  (I'll ask Bob K. to make sure he reads this.)

 

I think your anemone looked fine in the picture.  Sometimes their tenacles do strange things.  The things you want to watch for are deflated tenacles during the day.  When the lights are on, if all of them are deflated and pointing down instead of up or out, then something is definitely wrong. 

 

Another thing that indicates a problem is if it's moving around a lot.  Usually when you put an anemone in a tank, it should settle in a new spot within 24 hours - even if that spot is out of site.  Then, it may move again several weeks later to it's final spot.  If they are continually moving around, they are not finding a spot that meets their needs.  Something is either irritating it or it is not finding the lighting that it wants.  And since I don't understand what kind of lighting you have on your tank or the wattage, I don't know if this is the case or not.

 

I'm not sure how long your have had your anemone, but I question whether it is getting enough food.   DT's are for corals, frozen brine are very small and it probably doesn't catch very many of them and I don't know what marine snow is.  (Is it something for anemones?)  Frozen mysis shrimp might be a good idea.  I feed all of mine a small piece of raw cocktail shrimp once every 10 days or so just to make sure they are getting enough to eat.  If they don't want it, they just drop it.  But most of the time they eat it.

 

One thing that you will find with saltwater tanks is that it takes a lot of information before you can actually solve a problem. 

 

Amie, that sounds like the makings of a good SeaStar article.

 

But LFS said I can take it down to once a month if the growth is a problem.

 

I'm still doing once a week. Figure if it gets too big then I'll just get a bigger tank :)