lanman November 14, 2009 Share November 14, 2009 After two years of sitting happy and healthy in the same spot - my maxi-mini carpet anemone (Stichodactyla Tapetum) is looking very 'wimpy' - has white 'guts' sticking out of his mouth, and has actually moved over a couple of inches. What might be going on?? I know nothing about anemones, other than aiptasia. bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hbh November 14, 2009 Share November 14, 2009 HI! See if you can get ahold of Traveller7 or the other member here that is a prof. at Univ. of MD. that sells them. I'm having a brain freeze as to who. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan November 14, 2009 Share November 14, 2009 Is it's mouth open? Have you tried to feed it? Will it take food? After two years of sitting happy and healthy in the same spot - my maxi-mini carpet anemone (Stichodactyla Tapetum) is looking very 'wimpy' - has white 'guts' sticking out of his mouth, and has actually moved over a couple of inches. What might be going on?? I know nothing about anemones, other than aiptasia. bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan November 14, 2009 Share November 14, 2009 Does it look like this? This is a dying nem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lanman November 14, 2009 Author Share November 14, 2009 Does it look like this? This is a dying nem. That's what it looked like the other day. Today, while it still looks pretty 'sad' - it doesn't look as bad. I just can't imagine what might have made it so sick. I hope it recovers, but I'm keeping an eye on it. bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flowerseller November 14, 2009 Share November 14, 2009 Look it over pretty good. If it's not "smoking" anywhere, it should be fine. By that I mean a clear sign the tissue is melting/wasting away. Remove if this is the case, if not, thaw some mash type frozen food and allow it to act as chum right around the anemone's tenticles. Not a lot but enough for it to respond. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 November 15, 2009 Share November 15, 2009 Saw this one today and it looked like it was sloughing its mucus layer and the tentacles were completely shriveled (it looked like healthy tissue underneath). To me, it didn't look dead, but it certainly looked stressed and Bob was guessing that it ate something that it didn't like. It didn't look like it was bound to die, just looked really stressed out to me. I'm not an expert on them, but I've seen them recover from what his looks like, and if it was worse the other day, then it is certainly recovering at least a little bit. Despite the shriveled state, it didn't look like it was approaching death (Jan, your picture looks like the anemone was salvageable at that point). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amuze November 16, 2009 Share November 16, 2009 Maybe it just ate a bad burrito. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lanman November 16, 2009 Author Share November 16, 2009 (edited) Look it over pretty good.If it's not "smoking" anywhere, it should be fine. By that I mean a clear sign the tissue is melting/wasting away. Remove if this is the case, if not, thaw some mash type frozen food and allow it to act as chum right around the anemone's tenticles. Not a lot but enough for it to respond. I 'chummed' the tentacles twice today - about 6 hours apart. It doesn't look dead, it's not smoking, and really doesn't look worse than yesterday - but little if any better. I don't see any missing fish - will they try to eat snails and stuff? I tried taking some pictures - but it's in the worst place to photograph... they all turned out really bad. bob Edited November 16, 2009 by lanman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arwndsh November 16, 2009 Share November 16, 2009 Mini carpets will eat snails. We never could keep nerites in our biotope with them. As soon as they fell off the glass on to one they were gone. Is it possible that its getting ready to split? I mean I've never heard of a maxi-mini splitting in captivity, but its possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 November 16, 2009 Share November 16, 2009 Is it possible that its getting ready to split? I mean I've never heard of a maxi-mini splitting in captivity, but its possible. That's an interesting proposition. When I saw it, it did look like maybe it had split, much like how my bubble tips look when they have split. I wonder if that's why it looked smaller, it had actually split and half had wandered off... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lanman November 16, 2009 Author Share November 16, 2009 It looks pretty bad this evening... I'll look around - but I don't think it split. I think it's dying. Makes no sense at all, though. bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan November 16, 2009 Share November 16, 2009 I googled "dying anemone" and that's how I got the pic I posted. The anemone in the pic ended up dying. What I've read is that when they open up wide like that it's almost impossible to get them to go back to regular size. when they look like that they are dying. No one could explain why they were dying. Saw this one today and it looked like it was sloughing its mucus layer and the tentacles were completely shriveled (it looked like healthy tissue underneath). To me, it didn't look dead, but it certainly looked stressed and Bob was guessing that it ate something that it didn't like. It didn't look like it was bound to die, just looked really stressed out to me. I'm not an expert on them, but I've seen them recover from what his looks like, and if it was worse the other day, then it is certainly recovering at least a little bit. Despite the shriveled state, it didn't look like it was approaching death (Jan, your picture looks like the anemone was salvageable at that point). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan November 16, 2009 Share November 16, 2009 I just got 3 mini carpet anemones (Stichodactyla tapetum) from someone who has several. He says they split all the time. I've seen several posts where people also talk about "maxi" mini carpets but I've found no real reference to a "maxi" mini carpet anemone other than from someone who is selling several on nano reefs and now here. Is there a scientific name for a "maxi" mini carpet anemone or is it the same as a mini carpet (Stichodactyla tapetum)? Mini carpets will eat snails. We never could keep nerites in our biotope with them. As soon as they fell off the glass on to one they were gone. Is it possible that its getting ready to split? I mean I've never heard of a maxi-mini splitting in captivity, but its possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dshnarw November 16, 2009 Share November 16, 2009 I just got 3 mini carpet anemones (Stichodactyla tapetum) from someone who has several. He says they split all the time. I've seen several posts where people also talk about "maxi" mini carpets but I've found no real reference to a "maxi" mini carpet anemone other than from someone who is selling several on nano reefs and now here. Is there a scientific name for a "maxi" mini carpet anemone or is it the same as a mini carpet (Stichodactyla tapetum)? From everything we know, they are also S. tapetum. Just like with BTAs, there are "morphs" (most likely genetic lines) that grow large and rarely split and others that stay relatively small and split frequently. The large morph is the "maxi" and the small morph is the "regular" mini carpet. I would say a few options... 1. it split, and will continue to look pretty bad for a few days before it begins to heal itself. not likely in your case, but possible. 2. it ate something that didn't agree with it. IME, mini carpets have an upper limit on acceptable food size. If it managed to grab something too large (fish, larger shrimp, etc.), it'll look like crap for a week or so afterwards. 3. predation. Any new rocks going in? There are some hitchhiking crabs and worms that could predate it, although I would expect to see evidence on the other inhabitants as well. I hesitate to think it's just going to up and die on you. Given the abuse I've seen them go through, it would be difficult to imagine there wasn't some major tank issue that you would have noticed. But, similar to the large carpets, if it starts going south...not much you can do to save it IME. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amuze November 17, 2009 Share November 17, 2009 If it looks like the pic, then it is dying. I've had a couple die and they looked like that. I've had some split and they never looked like that. I'd chuck it. It could disolve and the stinging cells could go into your water column causing a tank crash. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lanman November 18, 2009 Author Share November 18, 2009 It released its hold on the glass, and drifted into the corner in a pile. I removed it, and there wasn't much left but the rim, and the foot. Looked like all of its 'guts' has just dissolved away. I gave it a peaceful burial. Everything else in the tank looks fine, but I did a water change tonight, just in case. Really bums me out - it was a 'fixture' of the tank - had been in there since about 3 months after I started the tank (about 20 months), and lived in my 58 for a year before that. Never showed any signs of illness or distress in all that time. I guess I just expected it to last forever. bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L8 2 RISE November 18, 2009 Share November 18, 2009 I'm really sorry to see it go, never saw it in person, but have seen it in several threads and it was unusual and NICE. Yesterday I went down to the tank after I got home and noticed something strange and then realized my BTA had retracted into the rocks and looked almost exactly like the one Jan posted. I feared the worst, but stirred the sand bed up and then left it, went down about 2 hours later and it was right back the way it was, perfectly fine. I thought it might have eaten something that it hadn't agreed with or "over-eaten" (can 'nem's do that?) because I started feeding it pieces of shrimp everyday for the last week and a half in hopes of getting it to split. Don't know what it was though... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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