Advice please

stevepaynr84 · Jan 7, 2019

So looking for some advice on an anemone I bought a few days ago. It's spent the first few days hiding under a rock but has come out today but I'm told it looks bleached. What do I need to do to help this guy? Obviously don't want to lose him so am open to any and all advice please. Pictures are from when I got him until now.

saltyfilmfolks · Jan 7, 2019

If it’s out and open, let it be.

stevepaynr84 · Jan 7, 2019

saltyfilmfolks said:
If it’s out and open, let it be.

Thank you. So you don't think I should lower the lights a bit or anything like that? Does it look bleached to you?

saltyfilmfolks · Jan 7, 2019

stevepaynr84 said:
Thank you. So you don't think I should lower the lights a bit or anything like that? Does it look bleached to you?

Don’t do anything rash. The me nem(bunch of WEIRD animals), hid and did it’s thing. The fact it came out , landed in a spot tells me it knows what it’s doing.

Bleaching ? No. I’d say shock or acclimation.
True bleaching is too much light.
Let it be.
You should have screens and such on your powerheads I’d imagine if it walks, so No worries.

Poseidon03 · Jan 8, 2019

I agree that it does look bleached. The only thing I would do is keep it under constant parameters and feed it 1/3rd of a medium shrimp 1-2x a week.

stevepaynr84 · Jan 8, 2019

Seems to have settled down in a new spot. I've lowered my lighting slightly as a precaution and will bring it gradually back up but don't think it's bleached as it looks nice and green to me. Think it was just a combination of lights and crappy phone camera that gave it that impression.

saltyfilmfolks · Jan 8, 2019

I wouldn’t mess with much. They find their spot based on flow and light.

BranchingHammer · Jan 8, 2019

I’m sure it would love feeding, and it will recover better too.

Poseidon03 · Jan 27, 2019

Any updates?

Taylor t · Jan 27, 2019

Any reason the polyps on your leathers aren’t fully out? Those are easy and usually basking in full glory with good water quality?

davocean · Jan 27, 2019

It should become darker green as it regains health, and should be able to tolerate and make use of light better as that happens.

Mysis towards it a couple times a week is best to help that happen.

A healthy anemone w/ full color does not need to be spot fed at all, but a bleached nem as yours is/was lacks the zooxanthellae needed to process light into usable energy, and needs small easy to digest foods to help it rebuild zoo.

I do agree though that aside from that, usually it's best to not mess w/ them too much.

davocean · Jan 27, 2019

Taylor t said:
Any reason the polyps on your leathers aren’t fully out? Those are easy and usually basking in full glory with good water quality?

Maybe lights just came on would be my guess

stevepaynr84 · Jan 27, 2019

davocean said:
Maybe lights just came on would be my guess

Nailed it

stevepaynr84 · Jan 27, 2019

It seems to be doing a lot better lately and the clowns have started hosting it too which was quicker than expected. Don't know why it looks so white in my photos as looks a lot greener in real life. Only ever seems to have one big bubble on it though.

stevepaynr84 · Jan 27, 2019

I'm thinking it is maybe still a bit bleached though so will lower the lights a bit again as I had been slowly ramping them back up and may increase feeding with it.

stevepaynr84 · Feb 6, 2019

So here's some progress on how it's going. What does everyone think? Seems to be happy for a while but will then suddenly decide to shrink right down and hide in the rocks, is this normal? It always comes back out just scares me for a while whilst it's hiding. Sorry for picture overload. Ignore the toadstool. It's the sulkiest thing in the tank... probably because it's the angels favourite snack.

D-Nak · Feb 7, 2019

It's definitely bleached. It should--as most nems do--have a brown tinge that's indicative of a healthy zooanthellae population as davocean pointed out. Definitely feed it and it should improve. Don't worry about lowering the lights. Unlike corals that will bleach with too much light, BTAs can get hammered with light and will be fine.

My concern is your leathers. None look healthy (unless this is due to the lights coming on, as previously indicated). They tend to exude chemicals when they're not happy , typically due to stress from poor water quality or constantly getting picked on. I don't believe in anemone allelopathy but to feel that leathers can cause negative affects on other inhabitants including anemones, be it from chemicals or fouling the water from constantly sloughing off their "skin". It doesn't look like they're harming the anemone at the present time, but they could cause it to constantly move around the tank which leads to other problems.

How old is the tank and what are your parameters like?

stevepaynr84 · Feb 7, 2019

D-Nak said:
It's definitely bleached. It should--as most nems do--have a brown tinge that's indicative of a healthy zooanthellae population as davocean pointed out. Definitely feed it and it should improve. Don't worry about lowering the lights. Unlike corals that will bleach with too much light, BTAs can get hammered with light and will be fine.

My concern is your leathers. None look healthy (unless this is due to the lights coming on, as previously indicated). They tend to exude chemicals when they're not happy , typically due to stress from poor water quality or constantly getting picked on. I don't believe in anemone allelopathy but to feel that leathers can cause negative affects on other inhabitants including anemones, be it from chemicals or fouling the water from constantly sloughing off their "skin". It doesn't look like they're harming the anemone at the present time, but they could cause it to constantly move around the tank which leads to other problems.

How old is the tank and what are your parameters like?

Tank been running for 5 years or so. Leathers are fine for some reason I just seem to take pics at the wrong times. They do get picked on by a bi colour angel a fair bit but they all seem big enough to cope with it. Luckily he seems to take it in turns as to which one is his favourite. Currently the toadstool hence that looking so rough at the moment. Params are all steady though with nitrates below 5, ammonia untraceable, phosphate untraceable, nitrite untraceable. Had a bizarre temp swing a few days ago but that seems to have settled now too. Anemone looking far happier again today so all good.