What's going on with george?

[SalinFL]

Do you feed him? If so, when was the last time - in correlation to his behavior? Mine look like that the following days after I feed them, they're expelling.

 

[Shadowspop]

My Condi looks similar to that every morning and then perks up about an hour after the lights come on. Do you notice it more in the morning?

 

[SashimiTurtle]

I fed mine a rather large piece of squid about a few weeks ago. Two days after I fed him he was deflated and his mouth was hanging open... lasted for a few days. I thought he was a gonner. On I think the third day he moved around the corner, stayed over night then the next morning he was back in his regular spot and happy again. Could have been just a really big meal and he was trying to get rid of waste?

 

[Jgeebs413]

I was feeding him lightly daily and have cut back but maybe that's what it is. He usually stays pretty inflated through night and morning. The open mouth pic was about 18 hours after feeding. I see a lot of opinions on feed daily or 2-3 times a week to once a week. But exactly how much should it really be. The same amount a week wether it's all at once or split up?

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Smaller, more frequent meals seem to be more beneficial for most things. I'd try feeding twice a week and see how he does. How big, or small, of an anemone are we talking? Mine is about 2.5" across his oral disk. Tentacles are very short... I tried to feed a piece of squid that was about 1" square and he didn't look good the few days after. Usually its a 1/4" sized piece of frozen shrimp, scallop or fish twice a week.

 

[Jgeebs413]

Been feeding some of the brine and mysis also in attempt to lure the clowns to him. So haven't been any large meals. The mouth plate area is about 2 inches foot is about same. Been a couple days where he was really puffed up and larger.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

The only other thing I can think of is your light isn't strong enough. I'm not familiar with the Fluval light, honestly I'd never heard of it until now, but most of those LED strip lights lack power.

 

[Amoo]

You don't need to feed them at all, and they use a lot of energy eating foods. When they're looking sickkly one of the worst things you can do is feed them.

If he is inflated at night and is inflated most of the morning, around what time does he start to deflate? I'm going to stab at it and say either 10:30 or 2:30 based on what I'm thinking. What I need from you though is to observe and figure out about when each day he deflates as that will give us an answer.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

You don't need to feed them at all, and they use a lot of energy eating foods.

This is backwards from everything thing I've read.

 

[Amoo]

This is backwards from everything thing I've read.

I can promise you you can never feed an anemone anything at all and it will be just fine. There are many thousands of testimonials that show this to be the case.

 

[Amoo]

Gimme a little bit @Robin Haselden I need to run to the store and I'll be back in about 30, when I get back I'll find you something more then here-say. The basis though is that Nems are photosynthetic creatues and as such just like our corals and softies don't "need" to be fed to survive, as long as they have the right fuel to produce the Zoos in a proper amount they are gtg.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

That's cool... I'd like to grow mine big enough for it to host my clowns. It's a rainbow bta and I have black ocelaris clowns. Should be a pretty contrast if I can ever get them to go in, but right now the female dwarfs the nem. She's pushing 3 1/4", the male is around 3" and the nem is probably 2" across.

 

[Lance M.]

You don't need to feed them at all, and they use a lot of energy eating foods. When they're looking sickkly one of the worst things you can do is feed them.

I find this true, along with reading other people's experiences from both forums for many years. Feeding will stress them, small portions are ok, larger portions not so much. Causing undo stress to a sick anemone (feeding) is not recommended. It all depends though. If they are healthy to begin with in a healthy environment, feeding will help them gain mass faster and stress would likely be negligible. If they are bleached, feeding will sustain them until they zoo population increases and it is able to feed itself, provided the lighting issue is corrected. Feeding a sick anemone will cause them to spend energy consuming the food that they could have been using elsewhere.

 

[Jgeebs413]

Little late on the responding but the only time he really deflates is midday

 

[Jgeebs413]

Going to cut back on feedings. I'll just target feed every 2-3 days and get what he can when I feed the fish

 

[Jgeebs413]

Current state

 

[Lance M.]

Little late on the responding but the only time he really deflates is midday

What time is midday? If I had to guess, it would likely be caused by the odd lighting schedule with the break from 12-2pm.

 

[Jgeebs413]

What time is midday? If I had to guess, it would likely be caused by the odd lighting schedule with the break from 12-2pm.

Yea right around there. From a few places of reading I've found it's ok to have the lights go down to 60% for couple hours to allow for little longer on lighting so its actually viewable in the evening.

 

[Amoo]

But that's not what you're doing which is why I asked the very specific question. Essentially right now you start out blasting it with light withing 30 minutes of the light turning on, blast it for about 3.5 hours (pretty close to the max photo period you really need), then give it a break from noon to 2pm, then go back to blasting it from 2-7 for another 5 hours, or essentially almost 9 hours a day of full light.

I don't know exactly how much control you have over that light, but something more to the effect of

8-10 ramp from 0-60, 10-12 ramp from 60-100, 4-8 ramp from 100-40, 8-9 40-0.

Something similar to that and you may find yourself with better results. Along with the reduced feedings this would be where I would start.

 

[Amoo]

you could also just ramp 0-100 from 8-12, then 100 to 40 from 4-6 then 40 to 0 from 6-8 and you would be in about the same ballpark.