Carpets really will eat any thing.

2manyideas · Jun 9, 2021

I was playing video games the other day when out of the corner of my eye I see something white fall in my tank. I paused the game and went to investigate to find my white tuxedo urchin had fallen in the clutches of my carpet anemone. The carpet anemone was moving quick, pulling the urchin closer to its mouth while the urchin was desperately hanging on to my sand conch. This didn’t help much because the carpet was pulling the sand conch in too!! Since the urchin is one of my girlfriends favorite critters in the tank, she started telling me to save it. I acted quick, getting my feeding tongs and applying pressure against the sea urchin in the opposite direction of the mouth, carpets have a surprisingly strong grip. I was trying my best to not hurt either animal and to do so I maintained pressure, enough for resistance but not enough to pull it away and rip the tentacles off the anemone. Eventually the carpet gave up and the sea urchin was free. Below are pictures of the carpet and the clowns it hosts and the sea urchin after his run in. I’m hoping his spines grow back soon. Moral of the story…. Be wary buying a carpet. (It was the only anemone my clowns would host )

side note: the carpet shoved itself in that corner, that was not my doing. I had a spot of the tank wide enough for it to stretch out and it decided it liked to be in the corner better.

vetteguy53081 · Jun 9, 2021

Spines should grow back and if you dropped in a stick of dynamite, they’d eat it

2manyideas · Jun 9, 2021

vetteguy53081 said:
Spines should grow back and if you dropped in a stick of dynamite, they’d eat it

Thank you! Do I need to dose anything to aid the sea urchin in growing its spines back or will it be okay without dosing anything?

kados · Jun 9, 2021

Absolutely they do. I had a beautiful large neon green Carpet maybe 12" across at that time. A 4" Foxface swam into it while I was at work. By the time I saw it it was 99% swallowed up. What a strange experience that was..glad you were able to save the urchin!

2manyideas · Jun 9, 2021

kados said:
Absolutely they do. I had a beautiful large neon green Carpet maybe 12" across at that time. A 4" Foxface swam into it while I was at work. By the time I saw it it was 99% swallowed up. What a strange experience that was..glad you were able to save the urchin!

And those are poisonous aren’t they? They have barbs on them right? I’m glad I was able to save the urchin too. My girlfriend would have been quite upset if I wasn’t able to. Carpets are crazy.

kados · Jun 9, 2021

2manyideas said:
And those are poisonous aren’t they? They have barbs on them right? I’m glad I was able to save the urchin too. My girlfriend would have been quite upset if I wasn’t able to. Carpets are crazy.

My thoughts exactly. The spines are poisonous but no impact to the carpet. Creepiest part is when the emit the waste a couple of days later.. the skull and spines come out So weird man lol. That was 10 years ago but I remember my wife's reaction (girlfriend at the time). Carpets are crazy indeed.

revhtree · Jun 9, 2021

2manyideas said:
I was playing video games the other day when out of the corner of my eye I see something white fall in my tank. I paused the game and went to investigate to find my white tuxedo urchin had fallen in the clutches of my carpet anemone. The carpet anemone was moving quick, pulling the urchin closer to its mouth while the urchin was desperately hanging on to my sand conch. This didn’t help much because the carpet was pulling the sand conch in too!! Since the urchin is one of my girlfriends favorite critters in the tank, she started telling me to save it. I acted quick, getting my feeding tongs and applying pressure against the sea urchin in the opposite direction of the mouth, carpets have a surprisingly strong grip. I was trying my best to not hurt either animal and to do so I maintained pressure, enough for resistance but not enough to pull it away and rip the tentacles off the anemone. Eventually the carpet gave up and the sea urchin was free. Below are pictures of the carpet and the clowns it hosts and the sea urchin after his run in. I’m hoping his spines grow back soon. Moral of the story…. Be wary buying a carpet. (It was the only anemone my clowns would host )

side note: the carpet shoved itself in that corner, that was not my doing. I had a spot of the tank wide enough for it to stretch out and it decided it liked to be in the corner better.

It was looking for a spicy meal!