My bubble tip anemone kicked out pistol shrimp from cave and hiding in it. Something I can do?

[PennyZ]

I bought a bubble tip anemone 2 days ago and the same night it just decided to move into my pistol shrimp cave... now my poor shrimp is homeless and I don’t know what to do to get it out to make both of them happy. (Or should I)

Attached 2 pictures the first one is when I just put it into the tank.

 

The 2nd one took one day later.

 

Water parameters seems normal. Maybe it doesn’t like the lighting although that’s the built in light came with my Fluval EVO nano tank.

 

[Tired]

The pistol shrimp will dig itself a new cave. Leave them alone, you'll just stress and possibly hurt the anemone trying to move it. 

 

Your tank looks very new, though, and to my eye that anemone looks bleached. When did you set the tank up? Did the anemone look like that when you bought it? 

[DSA65PRO]

Stick an Ice Cube in the Cave, it will move out. No, it will not harm the Anemone. 

[Tired]

Leave it alone. If it's in the cave, it likes being in the cave, and will probably go back if you scare it out. Pistol shrimp can dig their own caves, anemones can't.

[Matteo]

Don't move the nem. It's happy there. Shrimp will build a million homes and tunnels no worries at all..

 

My gobie has three different holes he can peak out of. Your shrimp will do the same. 

[PennyZ]

Thanks all for the suggestions.

 

This morning the anemone was still shrink in the cave but with its mouth wide open. I started to get worried and decided to do something.

 

I flipped the rock it attached to 90 degree to make it out and facing sideway without remove it from rock. Then I realised its mouth was even more open because of gravity. I was very sad and almost decided to remove it before it starting to decay.

 

but then I decided to wait a bit longer. I’m glad I did. After 5 hours it started inflate its tentacles. Moved to a new spot. Pic attached ( took in night blue light)

 

Another sad thing is my pistol shrimp died without digging a new cave. Not sure why.

 

5 hours ago, Tired said:

Your tank looks very new, though, and to my eye that anemone looks bleached.

Yes it’s very new. 3 months old. Probably not a good idea to get anemone at this stage. Lessons learned... I took the photos with my mobile. Colour looks very close to how I looked at it in my eyes. It’s indeed a bit different with other bubble tips in the aquatics shop. Most of them are rose, red, grape like colour but this one is very bright pink.

 

[Tired]

Yeah, it's bleached. That means it's lost some of its photosynthetic algae from stress. You can tell because it looks transparent, it'll change its colors when it gets the algae back.

Be sure to feed it fairly often, meaty foods like bits of shrimp, to help it recover. Don't give it silversides, some people have their anemones abruptly die after eating silversides. Probably due to the silversides being spoiled in some way.

Don't take any advice from whatever shop that was. They sold you a bleached anemone for a new tank, so they either don't know what they're doing or don't care about your livestock.

 

Seriously, leave it alone. Stop bothering it, you'll stress it worse. If it's in a bad place, it will move itself. 

 

The pistol shrimp not immediately digging a new burrow definitely means something was wrong with it. I wonder if the anemone might have stung it up? Or if it was sick in the first place. 

[PennyZ]

Thanks for the information. This is very useful.

 

I thought it’s just a normal anemone with different colour. Never thought it’s unhealthy. Suddenly lost faith to that local aquatics shop in the garden centre 😞

 

Today it moved to another corner in my tank. My least favourite spot. I guess I might go get some frozen shrimp from food store start trying to feed it little pieces.
 

 

[RedCrow]

A lot of anemones bleach during transport. Leave it be, let it adjust. Don’t even bother feeding it for about a week or so. It’s extremely stressed right now, and anything you do to it, including feeding, will only stress it more.