HELP!!! Carpet anemone dying?

[courtneyTANG]

We are very new to the hobby. Purchased a house in august that came with a 180 gal 10 year old tank with a few fish and live rock. We have had the old homeowner and two LFS owners come and teach us how to care for tank. Anyway I still think we are doing something wrong. We have tried to add many things. Most of which die. We keep asking questions and doing what the people tell us to do but we aren't having good luck as I feel our new green carpet anemone is dying. We got him about 2 weeks ago and after 2 days of having him in the tank he started acting weird. He will shrink completely up looks like his insides are coming out then get back to his original size and mouth almost closed, and do that over and over again usually taking a few hours to go between. About 3 days ago he detached and is just sitting on the sand moving all over the place and still doing the shrink up and get big again deal. & today he started smoking out of his mouth. So I separated him from everything else.

Is he dying? I've read everywhere that he will kill everything in the tank if he goes. HELP [emoji33]

 

[Cment]

#Reefsquad

 

[Katie Kat]

We are very new to the hobby. Purchased a house in august that came with a 180 gal 10 year old tank with a few fish and live rock. We have had the old homeowner and two LFS owners come and teach us how to care for tank. Anyway I still think we are doing something wrong. We have tried to add many things. Most of which die. We keep asking questions and doing what the people tell us to do but we aren't having good luck as I feel our new green carpet anemone is dying. We got him about 2 weeks ago and after 2 days of having him in the tank he started acting weird. He will shrink completely up looks like his insides are coming out then get back to his original size and mouth almost closed, and do that over and over again usually taking a few hours to go between. About 3 days ago he detached and is just sitting on the sand moving all over the place and still doing the shrink up and get big again deal. & today he started smoking out of his mouth. So I separated him from everything else.

Is he dying? I've read everywhere that he will kill everything in the tank if he goes. HELP [emoji33]

Where are you located? The local aquarium store here, Lotus, has an amazing man that works there (Chris)... I'd recommend calling him.

 

[Katie Kat]

Where are you located? The local aquarium store here, Lotus, has an amazing man that works there (Chris)... I'd recommend calling him.

Lotus Aquarium in Los Angeles

 

[Christopher Davis]

Sadly he is dying, it might be too late unless you act extremely fast. Even then it's almost 75% odds against you. Tell us more about the tank something is off, could be old tank syndrome.
What equipment and lighting do you have!

 

[ebushrow]

Seems like he might just be stressed due to the tank change....likely the "smoking" was him or her releasing sperm or eggs (often anemones do this due to stress). The shrinking and re-inflating is typical as it takes and removes wastes in its body tissues exchanging water. It does concern me that it does it every day though. Have you fed it? Lighting and type?. Substrate type and depth?

As far as killing everything in the tank....I have heard the stories, however, if you get it out and don't let it rot, you should be good....however if you have any power heads and it crawls up onto one and gets sucked it....its like opening up a machine gun on the inhabitants....flying nematocysts with deadly stinging power.