Large H. Crispa mouth opened

[COreefer]

I bought this H. Crispa about two weeks ago. It is super huge, like 18" in diameter. The LFS I got it from brought it in from one of their customers, so it was in captivity for a long time. The anemone appears to be very healthy. It is opened wide, has good pigment (although it could be a bit darker) and has a great feeding response. Here is my dilemea...everything indicates this anemone is healthy with the exception of its mouth. It is basically like a hole. I have never seen an anemone this size so I don't know if the mouth should be squeezed shut or what. The mouth has been like this since the first day I brought it home...does anyone have any thoughts about this?? It's organs ar not exposed, nor it is turning inside out. The mouth just sort of gapes open. I would take a pic but it is so big the mouth would be tough to get a shot of. Thoughts??

[COreefer]

Does anyone have any feedback??

[COreefer]

ok...I was able to get one pic of the mouth...here are some pics of the mouth and the anemone.


http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/35418mouth_h_crispa.jpg


http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/35418h_crispa.jpg


http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/35418h_crispa_2.jpg

[COreefer]

EDIT: Nevermind...I figured it out... :)

[Morphieus5150]

What do you mean you "Figured it Out"???...What exactly was it that you Figured out???.. Why was its mouth Gaping???.... Curious...

[COreefer]

No I figured out how to link the pics...sorry about that.

[Morphieus5150]

Do you know if/ when, or what the Previous Feeding Schedule was for the Anemone???... I know some Btas will puff up thier mouths if/ when they are hungry...

[COreefer]

I've been feeding it silversides every 3rd day. Also it is eating the formula 1, PE Mysis and other things I feed my fish. I do not know what the previous schedule it was on or what it was being fed...should I ramp up the feedings? What would be better than silversides at this point?

[sarahkucera]

I have an H Crispa that's just about that size and it does the same thing when it's inflating, deflating, or just exchanging water. It also does that just after it poops. I've assumed that it's because of the giant size of the beast that in order to facilitate water movement it has to open its mouth quite a bit in order to move all of that water in or out.

[COreefer]

That would make sense but its mouth always seems to be like this. BTW, what are you feeding yours? I was thinking of feeding something other trhan silversides...do you or anyone have any suggestions?? Thanks for the info.

[sarahkucera]

My h crispa's mouth seems to do it totally randomly. Sometimes it'll look like that in the morning when it's puffing up right after the lights come on. Sometimes it'll look like that for the entire day when I'm a couple of days late in feeding it. It's pretty frequent. It used to freak me out really badly because when I got the nem it was a rescue from a tank tear down and I though it was going to die. But as the nem has regained it's color and doubled in size, I'm 100% confidant that the mouth looking like that is okay for it.
I wouldn't really even refer to it as gaping, because gaping sounds like something that is uncontrolled and when my h crispa does that, it looks like it has 100% control over it's mouth the entire time. The oral opening is never floppy, but always a near perfect circle that isn't really deep. I'm never able to see down into its stomach or its guts.
I think of it as yawning.

I feed nothing but silversides. The nem can eat whatever else it can catch during normal feeding time. I will feed one large silverside or two small silversides about once per week. While I was nursing it back to health I fed it twice per week, but now I don't think that's necessary. The beast already takes up a third of my 120, it can take a cut in feeding.

[Amphiprion]

Mine has NEVER done that??? It looks good overall, though, so I wouldn't allow it to be any cause of alarm. Feeding silversides is good--any whole fish based food is preferred for H. crispa.