Anemone’s from bleached to beautiful!

[1979fishgeek]

Ive noticed that unfortunately there a lot of bleached and poorly anemone for sale and it’s so common a lot of people don’t even realise that some species are not supposed to white. So let’s see those bleached or poorly anemones you have rescued and brought back to health. Post your before and after pics!

Here’s my two, both carpet nems (Haddons I believe).

 

[WMR]

Nice looking anemones, yes, the LFS around here tend focus on the corals & think of the nems as inverts like the snails, shrimps, etc. They need to be treated the same as corals, IMO

 

[Leslie Tabor]

So what specifically did you do to baby these back to health?

 

[1979fishgeek]

So what specifically did you do to baby these back to health?

I kept parameters stable as I could (but did have a NoPox issue, that’s another story!) I fed them small meals of sinking pellets every day to every other day. I let them move where they wanted and both liked caves, being surrounded by rocks or and being under overhangs for the first few months. After a loooong while they started getting a hint of tan colour but it was very subtle. Then I fed one of them a piece of Kenya tree (after reading that if a coral rich in zooxanthellae is fed to a bleached nem it speeds up the process, like a zooxanthellae transplant) within a couple of DAYS the colour was obviously much darker, rusty brown at first the colour of the Kenya and then turned pale mint green. So fed the other one a piece and same thing happened, within days colour started coming back. I don’t know if it was just coincidence but the difference was dramatic!
I continued to feed them mixture of pellets, cockles, shrimp, mussels they were getting bigger and as the colour returned they moved into stronger light and then turned blue, green with purple. They are over the three times the original size now, super sticky and their tentacles are nicely swollen and rounded...one strong enough to catch a Blue Devil Damsel!
I got them in February so it’s taken 5 months to get them to this point.

 

[1979fishgeek]

I kept parameters stable as I could (but did have a NoPox issue, that’s another story!) I fed them small meals of sinking pellets every day to every other day. I let them move where they wanted and both liked caves, being surrounded by rocks or and being under overhangs for the first few months. After a loooong while they started getting a hint of tan colour but it was very subtle. Then I fed one of them a piece of Kenya tree (after reading that if a coral rich in zooxanthellae is fed to a bleached nem it speeds up the process, like a zooxanthellae transplant) within a couple of DAYS the colour was obviously much darker, rusty brown at first the colour of the Kenya and then turned pale mint green. So fed the other one a piece and same thing happened, within days colour started coming back. I don’t know if it was just coincidence but the difference was dramatic!
I continued to feed them mixture of pellets, cockles, shrimp, mussels they were getting bigger and as the colour returned they moved into stronger light and then turned blue, green with purple. They are over the three times the original size now, super sticky and their tentacles are nicely swollen and rounded...one strong enough to catch a Blue Devil Damsel!
I got them in February so it’s taken 5 months to get them to this point.

Also should mention I added my name group of Saddleback Clowns and I honesty think the nems looked happier more puffed up when they hosted the clowns. The clowns would wriggling about in them, would clean substrate off them and of course poop into them! The nems looked deflated and depressed before the clowns arrived.

Some photos and you can also the colours coming back.

 

[Leslie Tabor]

The beauty of making the most natural habitat possible!

 

[ScottR]

I kept parameters stable as I could (but did have a NoPox issue, that’s another story!) I fed them small meals of sinking pellets every day to every other day. I let them move where they wanted and both liked caves, being surrounded by rocks or and being under overhangs for the first few months. After a loooong while they started getting a hint of tan colour but it was very subtle. Then I fed one of them a piece of Kenya tree (after reading that if a coral rich in zooxanthellae is fed to a bleached nem it speeds up the process, like a zooxanthellae transplant) within a couple of DAYS the colour was obviously much darker, rusty brown at first the colour of the Kenya and then turned pale mint green. So fed the other one a piece and same thing happened, within days colour started coming back. I don’t know if it was just coincidence but the difference was dramatic!
I continued to feed them mixture of pellets, cockles, shrimp, mussels they were getting bigger and as the colour returned they moved into stronger light and then turned blue, green with purple. They are over the three times the original size now, super sticky and their tentacles are nicely swollen and rounded...one strong enough to catch a Blue Devil Damsel!
I got them in February so it’s taken 5 months to get them to this point.

This is the first time I’ve heard of feeding corals to nems. I’ve never thought of it, but it does make sense. In fact, could you feed a coral to a bleaching coral? Would it even bite?

 

[TonysReef]

Great thread, hope my ritteri colours up.