Plleeeeease Help My Anemone !

[kbmdale]

My husband and I bought a Haitian Pink Tip Anemone at the lfs yesterday, was doing fine, moved overnight to a partially shaded spot in our tank. This morning she looked fine, was humongous, waving around and generally happy looking. We left around noon for a family gathering, and we came home, she had moved to the other end of the tank and apparently stuck herself/ or was sucked up to the water intake part of the power head. Bit of her tentacles were floating around. We immediately turned off the power head and moved her, for a while she was all shriveled up and looked dead, now she is open again and moved to a different spot. She looks a bit mangled, is there ANYTHING we can do for her???

[Reptoreef]

Be sure to run your skimmer a bit harder(wetter) and recharge/add activated carbon for a couple of days... the anemone will either thrive or slowly wilt, but the toxins it may have emitted can play heck. IMO, leave it be and screen off any probable mishaps(nylon screen, etc).

Repto

[Reef_Angel]

Awwww... I'm so sorry to hear about your miefortune, but have have similar experiences with prized fish. Time will tell on the anemone! Best of luck to you and all the other critters in your tanks!! ...........Angel

[Grandmaster_Toad]

Have had that same thing happen to one of my Anemones, it had alot of its tenticles sucked into the powerhead. I would suggest that back off on filter feeding for a few days to the Anemone so that open tears can heal over. Feed larger pieces of food as close to the mouth as you can. Try not to move it unless its unavoidable. Mine rehealed and grew right back to its grandure in no time. Also agree with carbon and Skimmer comment as a precaution
Good Luck.
GT

[kbmdale]

Thank you all for your input, have followed all suggestions :-) Annie eventually moved back to a safer spot, she has wedged herself very deeply between two rocks, the problem is that I can not see her mouth! It looks like she is eating her tentacles, she has about 6 - 8 of them shoved off in her mouth. Is this her way of healing them???? And also I bought some raw shrimp today for her and am going to go and try to feed her, as close to her mouth as possible (as suggested). Well I guess I'm going to find out the answer to this next question on my own.... Do you think she will pull out those tentacles long enough to eat?? Thank you so much for all the help and info. She's really beautiful and I don't want to lose her.

[Reef_Angel]

Sounds like your Annie has realized that she is much better off if she stays in her little place in the rocks! It's a good thing that you bought the shrimp for her. Chop it into small chunks, and even if she has her tentacles in her mouth at the moment, just set the shrimp pieces near her mouth in her sticky tentacles. I feed the two anemones I have by hand all the time. Mine are just plain spoiled rotten, so you might want to try my method for a while until Annie is all healed. I use the tiny frozen shrimp, melt them in a bowl with some tank water, and hand feed with my baster once a week unless they are ill and need special care. With yours going through such a shock, I would be inclined to feed small amounts with the baster every other day until you start seeing improvement. This is just my opinion. I don't know how badly she is injured. They love to be baster fed. When they are healthy, mine eat almost a full baster of shrimp! The nice thing about the anemone is that they have that stickiness on their tentacles that will help hold the food until she's ready to eat it, so don't fret if it doesn't disappear right away. It seems like they would rather wait til you're not looking so you can worry more! Ack!! I would love to see a picture of her if you get the chance. Good luck to your patient!!
........Angel

[kbmdale]

Well, I didn't feed her last night, because I really wanted to wait for a response, Thank You Angel so much for your advice, and as soon as I get my digital back from mother in-law I will take a picture of her for you. :D I got up this morning and she has moved out from in between the rocks to an open flat rock, because of this I assuming she is feeling a little better I just pulled out some shrimp and added some tank water to the plate I'm thawing it on. I will have my husband stop on the way home and pick up some vitamins from the LFS, any suggestions there? She still looks mangled and I expect she will for a while, but her tentacles look like those long clown balloons with kinks in them. She looks a little bleached as well, will the feeding help that? Angel, I would love to see some pics of yours as well This site has been very helpful and I like it very much. Thank you so much for all the help. Brianna

[kbmdale]

Okay, Annie is now fed. :-D I think that was the single most disgusting thing I have ever had to do! I don't like shrimp to begin with, and not only did I have to handle it, I had to cut it up..so on and so forth. She GOBBLED it up though, and is now once again on the move. I don't think she has really found a spot she likes yet, though I've heard that that may take up to a week or so. Ultimately I think she'll be okay :thumbup: I will continue to feed her every other day, as per your instructions Angel, for about a week, then back off to 2 times a week? Thank you for all of the advice, and since I AM a newbie, I'm sure you'll be hearing from me alot Brianna

[dakar]

Glad to hear your critter is doing better. What kind of powehead was it she got sucked up into? I trust you tossed it in your mixing bucket or something and replaced it with a safer one for your critters.

[Reef_Angel]

Hi Brianna!! I'm so happy to hear she ate for you. That in itself is a fantastic sign!
I don't have a Haitian Pink Tip Anemone, but I do have a Sebae Purple Tip and I have a silly little Curly Q Anemone that I hand feed once a week with frozen brine shrimp. Then I don't ever have to handle it....the no touch method for you!! I just melt it in a bowl with tank water, suck it up with a baster and mimic "bottle feeding" a critter. Just push the food from the baster deep into the mouth area and tentacles like I explained above in my previous post.
She may look raggy now, but she will heal up before you know it! She also sound like the type of anemone that is a wanderer. Some anemones like to move all around the tank and there's no holding them back from their exploring nature. I would just make darn sure that she's not able to get herself sucked back up into the water intake part of the power head again. Did you find a way do cover that with some netting or screen of some type? I think we've all been there one time or another! I'll take some pictures of our anemones and post them in our gallery asap! I've been trying to get a few up there laterl, but something is always interupting me at home here! Not enough hours in the day, that's for sure!! Welcome to Captive Reefing by the way!! We hope to hear a lot more from you! .....Angel