Sabae anemone help

TLeTourneau · Feb 14, 2019

Well we just move it to a quarantine tank. It wouldn't settle in so, thinking our sand bed might not be deep enough we added 40lbs of sand to get the recommended depth. When we moved it to the deeper sand bed we noticed what appears to be a wound on it, we are wondering if the bristle worms did it but we're not sure. Once we noticed it we moved it to a quarantine tank to be safe. I've attached pictures, I'm not sure how to treat it. We have some E.M. erythromycin that is supposed to help with open wounds but I'm not sure if that's appropriate for an anenome. I've attached pictures.

ScottR · Feb 14, 2019

TLeTourneau said:
Well we just move it to a quarantine tank. It wouldn't settle in so, thinking our sand bed might not be deep enough we added 40lbs of sand to get the recommended depth. When we moved it to the deeper sand bed we noticed what appears to be a wound on it, we are wondering if the bristle worms did it but we're not sure. Once we noticed it we moved it to a quarantine tank to be safe. I've attached pictures, I'm not sure how to treat it. We have some E.M. erythromycin that is supposed to help with open wounds but I'm not sure if that's appropriate for an anenome. I've attached pictures.

These are hard to care for, needing perfect lighting, feeding and substrate and such. I believe bristleworms do snack on them. Unfortunately they don’t do well in captivity. 40 lbs of sand. Sounds like you’re running a large tank? Does you QT get adequate lighting?

TLeTourneau · Feb 14, 2019

We have a Red Sea Reefer 350 so it's a 73 gallon display tank, adding the sand was not a huge issue for us. The QT tank has fairly bright LED strip lighting and is only 12" tall so the light to the bottom seems ok but I can see if we can improve it. We left the QT tank bare bottom for ease of cleaning and visibility, I hope that's ok. I am especially concerned about what appears to be a wound on its side, shown in the picture. Assuming that it is a wound is there anything that we can do to treat it?

We've tried to control our bristle worm population but have not had much luck on that front so I am also concerned that if we are able to save the anenome that it will have a similar response when reintroduced to the tank. I have no problem rehoming it if necessary.

davocean · Feb 14, 2019

It's not going to look happy in a BB tank, maybe tupperware of sand might help.

Hard to see or say much about any wound, as long as it's not a torn foot or mouth they should heal.

Kinda hard to know what's going on looking at it as is now in qt

They do need a sand bed of 3-4"

TLeTourneau · Feb 14, 2019

First, thanks for the replies, I really appreciate it!!

Next, we can do that, would you recommend Carib-Sea aragonite, oolite, or super naturals? Our display has Carib-Sea Ocean Direct but I don't have any more of that and it is not sold locally. I could take some out of the display tank and sift out an bristle worms but I don't have an issue picking up 10lbs for this.

Would you recommend treating the QT tank with the E.M. erythromycin as well?

The sand bed in our display tank is now 2-5" but we do plan on more evenly distributing the sand to average 3-4" throughout the tank.

ScottR · Feb 14, 2019

TLeTourneau said:
We have a Red Sea Reefer 350 so it's a 73 gallon display tank, adding the sand was not a huge issue for us. The QT tank has fairly bright LED strip lighting and is only 12" tall so the light to the bottom seems ok but I can see if we can improve it. We left the QT tank bare bottom for ease of cleaning and visibility, I hope that's ok. I am especially concerned about what appears to be a wound on its side, shown in the picture. Assuming that it is a wound is there anything that we can do to treat it?

We've tried to control our bristle worm population but have not had much luck on that front so I am also concerned that if we are able to save the anenome that it will have a similar response when reintroduced to the tank. I have no problem rehoming it if necessary.

How old is your tank? Usually these anemone need a really well-established tank to thrive.

TLeTourneau · Feb 14, 2019

ScottR said:
How old is your tank? Usually these anemone need a really well-established tank to thrive.

Our tank is about a year old, most of the corals were moved during an upgrade from a 5 gallon tank that was around 2 years old at the time of the change.

davocean · Feb 14, 2019

I prefer a heavier grain sand like the caribsea seaflor special grade, that way you can still have decent flow w/out it blowing all over.

I don't know if I'd throw meds at it just yet.

Get in sand, give it a couple days to see what it does.

MSB123 · Feb 14, 2019

I would also suggest getting better lighting for your QT. A LED strip is not going to cut it.

TLeTourneau · Feb 14, 2019

I can get Carib-Sea Natural Reef which has a typical size of 3.0 - 5.5mm, do you think that would be alright? the sand in the display tank is Carib-Sea Ocean Direct Original Grade with a typical size of 0.25 - 6.5mm.

I'll look at a higher intensity fixture but it will likely still be some form of LED. Our display tank is also LED.