bubble anemone

[catchyy]

I was wondering what was wrong with my bubble anemone. It keeps closing up and then it will open up again sometimes. Right now it looks like its shedding (the bottom red part) or something. My clown fish just bit the shedding part off. Any reason why it would do this? Temperature is right. Tests seem ok but i dont have an alkalinity test.

[Aiptasia]

That doesn't sound good. Anemones are essentially naked corals, and they are sensitive to nitrates. Check the tank for nitrate levels (ammonia, nitrite and nitrate) and make sure that the first two are zero and nitrate is below 10 ppm.

 

Shedding from the base is a sign that the anemone isn't healthy. Some anemones will shed a waxy layer from time to time to rid themselves of surface bacteria, but they usually recover and look just fine a few days afterwards. With bacterially infected anemones, sometimes you can see a brownish bacterial jelly on the anemone, sometimes it looks like the skin is sloughing off. If this is the case, your anemone may be on it's last legs. Some anemones, like your bubble, do benefit from strong full spectrum lighting, and they do need to be fed zooplankton to survive. I've found my anemones do better with the smaller food particles in zooplankton formulas (red sea, two little fishies) than feeding them big chunks of meat, like feeder fish.

 

If you have a skimmer, it's probably frothing like crazy. If you can remove the anemone to an emergency quarantine tank, go ahead and do so. If it's going to recover, it can do it in the quarantine tank. If it's going to die, at least it won't foul the main tank.

[offsprg01]

lighting? anenomes can be picky and really aren't a good selection for the begenning reefer. just monitor your water make sure you don't have any spikes. take your water a to a reputable lfs ask them to test but don't let them sell you any cure all chemicals. and there also may be something out of whack that reefers don't test for. there are many diffrent chemical floating around in you tank we just test for the basic paramaters toget a good idea of how our tanks are doing. this is why anenomes are reccomened for established aquariums older than 6 months as this extened "cycling" time, if you will , allows for all these other unknowns to work them selves out and you system will become much more stable.

 

basically all you can do is watch and pray that he gets better. if he starts looking really bad take him to another tank asap becuase is he melts in you tank it would be like some body dropping an A-bomb on the bikini islands.