Anemone dead?!!?!

[stevesherrin]

I have a 6 month tank, all parameters in range. I added a bubble tip anemone a week ago and it was continually moving around the tank. During the night it migrated to under a bridge of rocks and was filling the entire arch. I came back a couple of hours later and it had shrunk by over 50% and curled up into a ball with only the tips of a few small tentacles sticking out. the only change I had made was adding a media reactor with 30% GFO 70% activated charcoal yesterday. I am pretty sure it is dead (in just about 2 hours time) but don't want to remove it prematurely

 

[KrisReef]

Interesting.
Did phosphorus go to zero?
Wandering nems are often unhappy (they are looking for suitable habitat, ime).
The nem in the picture looks seriously unhappy perhaps dying?

I can’t say for certain that it will die soon but removing an anemone before they die is much preferable to having the corpse rotting into mush and polluting the entire tank. The rotten nem has been known to cause a cascade of death by ruining the water quality in small tanks.

Keep an eye on it.

 

[stevesherrin]

No idea what happened but 6 hours later it started opening back up and inflated back to normal size.

 

[ReefLife_Guy]

No idea what happened but 6 hours later it started opening back up and inflated back to normal size.

If I were you I would order some ciprofloxacin to have on standby, even sick nems will perk back up and look completely normal just to look like poop again in a days time. This is really common to see, I would still try to figure out why the nem is unhappy in the first place because more times than not a nem that has released from the rock and looked like that on the sand will end up looking like that again if the problem isn’t fixed. My green bubble tip got sick like this and I held off ordering cipro because it would do this cycle of exposing its mesentery and gaping mouth and then would perk up and look normal. I think someone on here suggested this is just a mechanism of trying to flush itself out from an infection and it makes sense why you would see them inflate like normal and completely deflate over and over. Usually this becomes more and more frequent and then the nem just gives up. Definitely keep an eye on it and if I were you I would think about getting some ciprofloxacin just in case you need to treat it.

 

[Garyakala]

It has bacterial infection, so get ciprofloxacin medication to cure it. You can just smashed the medication and inject it in the anemone mouth. That is what happen to my supernova anemone.

 

[ReefLife_Guy]

No idea what happened but 6 hours later it started opening back up and inflated back to normal size.

Also this picture to me still looks like an unhappy anemone, while it definitely looks better than the original photo, this photo shows the tentacles are shortened which is a sign of poor health. This is how mine looked when it inflated as well. It might be helpful to post more details about your tanks water parameters and maybe a full tank shot because sometimes in the early stages you can just fix what is making the nem upset and save having to treat it.

 

[ReefLife_Guy]

It has bacterial infection, so get ciprofloxacin medication to cure it. You can just smashed the medication and inject it in the anemone mouth. That is what happen to my supernova anemone.

Not sure about this method. I’m not saying it is wrong but the current protocols out there suggest treating hospital tank water and this method has been successfully performed over and over by many experienced reefers. It is very possible “feeding” the anemone ciprofloxacin could work just as well but there is a risk with this method as feeding anemones anything (even food) sometimes stresses them out. I’m curious if anyone else has tried and been successful putting the cipro directly in the anemone mouth.

@Eagle_Steve @Lost in the Sauce

 

[Garyakala]

Not sure about this method. I’m not saying it is wrong but the current protocols out there suggest treating hospital tank water and this method has been successfully performed over and over by many experienced reefers. It is very possible “feeding” the anemone ciprofloxacin could work just as well but there is a risk with this method as feeding anemones anything (even food) sometimes stresses them out. I’m curious if anyone else has tried and been successful putting the cipro directly in the anemone mouth.

@Eagle_Steve @Lost in the Sauce

I did it. My supernova anemone and my inferno both got bacteria infection. And I got to lazy to take them out of the same tank. Now they are doing great together, by using the method I suggested. Also the reason they got bacterial infection is because two different species of anemone in same tank, but now they are doing great together. I can take pictures to prove it.

 

[Garyakala]

Here are the pictures.

 

[fubanachi24]

This was how mine was looking .. today I found it under a rock and seems like it is splitting in half …!! I don’t know what this means. Can anyone help!?