LTA Dying? Is there a chance?

[Pennies2Cents]

Hi Everyone,

Hope all is well. We bought this guy about two weeks ago. He was doing good. But for some reason he's been moving around in the tank and cant seem to settle in one place. He did at first and was doing good, even the perculas were doing their thing with it. They liked it too..

Well, one day I noticed we had bristle worms and I noticed a few around him when he was not opening and just did not look happy. I read that Anenome's are sometimes prey to these ugly worms.

We are fixing to upgrade in a couple of weeks and was wondering if someone could hang on to this little guy until we get this worm thing under control and our upgrade all settled.

Does anyone have any room.. I prefer some one who is close to us as we are on the NW side of San Antonio, Culebra/1604 area. I will send him with a new container of Frozen Krill for feeding purposes.


Thanks.:confused::confused:

[rz1a]

how is the flow in your tank and what type of subtrate do you have? mine hated hated flow so it hid in the back and buried its foot in the sandbed under a rock. it actually attached all the way through the sand and onto the bottom glass

when i removed him my friend placed him by a rock on the sand and it immediately dug right in. he had less flow than in my tank

how is the foot also? is it torn by any chance?

[Pennies2Cents]

We currently have a Koralia 2 running in the back of the tank and since we got him we have only turned on the Koralia 3 that we have once. He didnt like it so I turned it off.

We have mixed substrate of fine sand & crushed. In the beginning he stuck to the side of the aquarium which was okay with me but then that is where the Bristles were getting him... So he closed up and unlatched him self. Hasnt really taken to one spot ever since. Just been on the move.

I would think the foot is okay as I havent really done anything to harm him, like pull him off the glass or something like that. He has attached to a few rocks only to be on the move again. He just cant find another comfortable spot. I even tried to put him where he originally anchored himself w/ no success.

[rz1a]

it might not find the right spot because of the crushed coral and fine sandbed mix. they like muddy substrate since where they're found it's usually muddy. best next thing is fine substrate and strong light above them

have you checked out to see what the worms might be eating? i think i had the same problem you did but they just stopped. it might have been that they were checking out something that got stuck to the anemone

you could also turn off the powerheads for a while and if its loose, place it where you want close to a rock on the sandbed. they slowly start trying to move until the foot penetrates the sand. if your turn the powerheads on then youll know its the koralias

[Pennies2Cents]

My top layer is pretty much fine sub, but undernieth is crushed coral. We have a PC with 2 lunar & 2 Actinics in a 55 gal. The worms are eating the brine shrimp I feed everbody one on one. I have caught a few with a piece of nylon hose with shrimp and they go to town on it. They even come out during the day. Weird!

Okay I tried to put him where i thought the fine sand was thick and in between two rocks and i think he liked it for a while, all night anyway cause he was open and actually trying to wedge him self in, but this morning around 11am he let go again and is back to the closed position. Now its like his mouth is wide open and white stuff from the inside of him is showing.. He is still the bright green color he was when we got him, when he opens up so i would think that is a good sign right? If he turns bleached then I guess thats when I would have a prob right? I will try to take some pics and post them on here... Thanks for all your help.

[rz1a]

its a prolblem when the insides come out, but mine has done this when its pigging out but goes back to normal. you may have a fine layer on top, but you need to understand that they can put their foot all the way through until they hit the glass. i had about a 4" sandbed in my tank and it put its foot on the glass and still stretched out trying to go over the rock that was shading it in order to get light. if it starts having to put its foot through jagged crushed coral, then it may not like it and look for another spot.

[Kristy]

Not sure about your LTA problems, but if you find that the bristle worms are becoming an issue, you could always look for an arrow crab. They are big and ugly, but they eat pick up bristle worms in their pinchers and eat them like hot dogs. Fun to watch.

[Pennies2Cents]

Thanks for the info Kristy.. :)

[dustint21]

I bought that green bristle worm trap, cant remember the manufactors name! Sorry! But it worked great for the smaller worms! I would check on it before i went to bed and the larger worms could reach the bate and still have half thier body out of the tube so i would take the trap out before they would escape! Thsi worked great!! I did it for about a week and now I only see a couple small ones at night! Good luck with the swap and the LTA!

[Pennies2Cents]

It does this when Im feeding everybody in the tank. I dont know what to do. Im going to try to make a pile of the fine sand in a corner between a rock and see if he takes to it. I hope it does before its too late. I also read that maybe a PVC pipe may help too.. Any other suggestions?

[rz1a]

dont worry about the worms. i really doubt theyre making your anemone move. theyre great to have in the tank

[Pennies2Cents]

I think hes dying, now hes completly flipped inside out..

[rz1a]

can you provide pics?

[Pennies2Cents]

yes i will get them up here in 10 minutes

[Pennies2Cents]

2 weeks ago
http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk90/avonorders2005/DSC_0052.jpg
http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk90/avonorders2005/DSC_0055.jpg


today.
http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk90/avonorders2005/DSC_0114.jpg

[rz1a]

are you sure thats the mouth and not a torn foot? im just wondering. but if thats the mouth it looks really bad, and if its a torn foot it most likely wont recover :[

[Pennies2Cents]

yes im sure I literally watched him g inside out! Its not the foot. Could it recover? Should I take em out and trash em????

[jrsatx20]

he will start to fall apart when dead. check everyday for that if u dont catch it in time it will dirty the water really fast.

[marshall.read]

yeah, he doesn't look promising. watch carefully and remove it if it dies. if you have a skimmer i would set it to a wet skim for the next few days. If your skimmer is pretty good it should be able to handle him dying without too much impact on your water quality.

[Pennies2Cents]

RIP Mr. Anenome... Percula's are not too happy.. :cry_smile:

Thanks for all your input these past couple days.. I took him out this morning. He wasnt falling apart yet but I just didnt want to take a chance in loosing everyone else in the process. We have the skimmer working overtime right now just in case.