My anemones first accident

[saltymight]

So i just got a gbt anemone about 8 hours ago. I took my sweet time to acclimate him about 2 hours. than i put him in my tank. finally after about 2 hours i leave to go watch the sabres lose than come home and the poor guy is stuck in my inlet of the canister. I turned it off and tried my hardest to get him out gently but some ripping accrued. some tentacles fell off. I looked at his mouth it look ok. than his foot was good. it looked like he got about a half inch rip on the side of him from where his tentacles are down towards his foot. the good news is i put his foot on a rock and he was sticking to it. Any ideas on how to help the little guy at all hes about 5-6" long and he looks pretty messed up. i heard some recovery stories from people here so anything that i could do like put him in low flow area or what thanx for any imput

[greech]

I don't think there is much you can do other than keep an eye on it and let it be where it wants to be. From what I have read bubbles are fairly resilient when they are healthy. They can also split if they get stressed which might be a good thing in this case. I hope it continues to improve. Assume your water quality and lighting is good? Also, if your lighting is stronger that where it was prior, you may want to shield it a bit to allow it to acclimate to your light.

[garygb]

pics? species? too late now, but best to leave the anemone alone and let it slowly undo itself. Some species can recover, others have a much poorer survival rate.

[OrionN]

In general, one should not use canister filder in a reef tank. This generate to much nitrate for a reef tank. You should not try to remove the anemone from the intake. This will cause more damage. Maybe this is too late, but just turn it off and the anemone will slowly disentangle itself with minimal additional injury.
Tell me more about your tank, the species of the anemone and I can give my opinion as you should attemp to keep him or not.

[jasonrp104]

IF it ever happens again just shut off the canister, remove the inlet nozzel and blow the anemone out of it back into the water.

It works...don't ask how I know

[saltymight]

I don't think there is much you can do other than keep an eye on it and let it be where it wants to be. From what I have read bubbles are fairly resilient when they are healthy. They can also split if they get stressed which might be a good thing in this case. I hope it continues to improve. Assume your water quality and lighting is good? Also, if your lighting is stronger that where it was prior, you may want to shield it a bit to allow it to acclimate to your light.

I actually put on only 4 actinic's t-5 54 w in my 55 is about i think 3.8 WPG I was planning on keeping them on for about 5 days than using the other 4 white ones. i know about the screen thing. I was just thinking I dont have the crazy MH or corals so nothing should get hurt. the guy said he was under a t-5 system with two bulbs. the tank was maybe 5 gallons.

[saltymight]

pics? species? too late now, but best to leave the anemone alone and let it slowly undo itself. Some species can recover, others have a much poorer survival rate.

Its a green bubble, i will get some from my droid phone it takes pretty good ones

[saltymight]

So no pictures for a while he's in a cave I can see some of his tentacles. So ya I realized after I did it I messed up taking him out. I was a little buzzed and I freaked out. at least I was smart enough to turn the filter off. about 30 minutes after I was thinking omg I should of just taken the little cap off. when/if he comes out I will give some pictures.

[garygb]

With BTAs, the chances of recovery are very good assuming your tank water is in very good condition (e.g., undetectable nitrates, NSW salinity, temp. etc.) I personally would want to have some daylights along with the actinics. It certainly could be too much to have all 8 lights on at once. More information about your tank, such as depth that the anemone is, individual reflectors, etc. A pic is worth a thousand words, even just a pic of the tank since the anemone is hiding.

[saltymight]

Should i be trying to feed the lil bugger? hes not really out in the opening for that much if any lights. If so how often

[eric@tampa]

Don't forget to run some carbon.Good luck.

[saltymight]

yup got carbon what about feeding him?

[bradleym]

Yep, feed 'em. If he's hiding from the light he'll need food all the more to heal.

[saltymight]

hmm he did take to the small piece of raw shrimp. I,m going to try squid tomorrow. It was funny I grabbed a piece or shrimp and squid. The guy was looking at me weird, but hey who buys a single piece of shrimp.

[bradleym]

Just so you are aware, they usually only eat at max every other day so feeding tomorrow might be overkill. Just trying to save you a piece of food you can use later.

[saltymight]

a little update So its been about 3 weeks since the little guy got stuck in the inlet. Then moved moved into a cave and about 2 weeks ago he moved and under a over hang, and has been there since. At first he was hiding under the rocks, but now he is stretching his tentacles under the light. I been trying to feed him either raw shrimp or squid. He has not taken to it yet. Its been about a week since i tired to feed him so I will try again later when I get home from school. And then actually at one point my clown fish were swimming in him at night. but usually at night I see the clowns swim near his foot that's attached to a rock. I'm just happy the guy is doing much better.

[bradleym]

Good deal! Stretching out toward the light is a good sign, and that makes the food less critical. I would agree that you should keep trying to feed him but if he's getting to the light he's getting energy from there too. Good luck! BTW, don't forget pics if he crawls into view. :)

[Pamelahaley]

I've lost 2 BTAs to the filter... the last one, I just took back to the store before it was too late.

BTAs have the roughest time finding a good place to stay and tend to travel in my experience.

It doesn't matter if it's a canister filter because I lost mine to an overflow. The last one I had, I just kept waking up frequently in the night to find it inches away, peel it off the glass and put it back in the opposite corner. it took him 4-6 hours to travel.

I gave up and got a cheap lta.

I have heard you can wrap foam or screen around the filter intake because the holes for pass through reduse the odds of the nem getting sucked in if it goes near it.

[saltymight]

Well I just upgraded to a sump not to long ago. The canister is only going to be there for another few weeks. I will get a picture tomorrow when I get home.

[saltymight]

Here are the two sides of the anemone. The one with more red is his foot. That's the side he got stuck on. The other one is the other side of him that was not in the inlet.

[bradleym]

Thanks for posting those. Looks like its still pretty hurt. I say this because I see a lot of foot and not a lot of tentacles, meaning he still withdrawn. I would say to check your ammonia and nitrates. If you have either in the water, it may be a result of the early stages of his healing process. If you have those levels above zero I would suggest a 10% or more water change every week until he opens his disk all the way back up. By then he should stop producing dangerous amounts of waste. I'm not very familiar with healing of a damaged foot though, so to be honest this is mostly my opinion.

On the upside, he looks like he's got a really good chance to bounce back from this. Good luck.

[saltymight]

sounds good I usually do a 5% change weekly so I will bump it up.

[saltymight]

So this morning I saw the lil guy stretching all the way to one side and not hiding is one side like he was before. When i get home later this afternoon I will see if he is still stretched out. and now my clowns are teasing me, they are sleeping by his foot and not in him =(

[saltymight]

So the little bugger moved last night. Than he stopped near a power head and looks really good I will show a picture tomorrow

[saltymight]

He looks the same pretty much all around. he moved to the far left of my tank can get a good pick of him from that view but his tentacles look way better.

[bradleym]

Yep, looks like you're set. He should be back to normal in no time if he isn't already. Just watch it with a powerhead nearby. You might even consider covering the "in" side in case he gets any closer.