Bad day.

Rustynuts · 03-05-2007, 02:23 PM

Well, today has been a bad day.

I got a call from the wife this afternoon and she had a problem with the tank, so I headed home sharpish. Got back, and the anemone had decided to move round the tank and had found its way to the powerhead which I'd just put in at the weekend to try out a new rotating swirler device. There it'd got sucked into the inlet and was in the process of being torn apart by the impeller in the pump.

So, by the time I got home the Regal Tang, the Flame Angel, and the 2 spot Hogfish were all dead. Wifey had turned off the powerhead, and was in the process of trying to net the dead fish out.

Had to do a massive water change to dilute the poisoned water, vacuum all the gravel aswell, so in the end we finished up rebuilding the whole landscape.

On the plus side, the 2 Perculas have survived (probably due to the fact that they live in the anemone and are immune to its stinging) as did the Goby, the cleaner shrimp, the boxer shrimp, and all the corals (so far). And the anemone is still alive. It'll probably pull through as if nothing happened.

Financially, the 3 fish cost us about £95, but it's not the money that's important.

Bugger. That bloody anemone hasn't moved for months, and as soon as there's a free ride into the afterlife, it picks up its foot and walks.....

Oh, and it's not the tank in my sig, it's another one.

glampka · 03-05-2007, 02:26 PM

Sorry to hear about the day & the loss. Powerhead filter blocks are worth their weight in gold.

mattgeezer · 03-05-2007, 02:26 PM

i feel for ya mate ....losses suck karma for your loss

Pisces23 · 03-05-2007, 02:34 PM

sorry for the craptastic day...good luck w/ the recovery...
my anenome, after happily sitting still for months, recently split in half and then started wandering around the tank...this past weekend it decided to take up residence on top of my zoanthids...super...and my maroon clown would chew off my fingers if i tried moving the li'l bugger...

m_lacom99 · 03-05-2007, 02:37 PM

I had my RBTA go through a PH twice and its still alive and kicking... All i did is net the tentacles that were cut off out of the tank. Didnt loose anything. Loosing fish always sucks no matter how it happened. karma for your loss.

Marc.

mm2002 · 03-05-2007, 06:37 PM

I remember the first time I had a very large and beautiful ritteri do the same thing, but I didn't have any deaths as a result. I guess I was lucky. Since then I always put a sponge filter around the inlet of any power heads or pump inlets. Even the slots of an over-flow aren't safe for Anemones, but I've found no way to get around that except decreased water flow.
I'm sorry to hear of your losses man, that sucks. (no pun intended)
In my experience, there's no such thing as a sedentary Anemone. Does anyone know of any that are? I plan on some Anemones in my new tank, so any further advice would be extremely appreciated.

Rustynuts · 03-06-2007, 01:36 AM

Thanks for the Karma guys.

Things look a little better this morning. The Goby has settled down to a new home, the corals are all coming back out, and the water's cleared a lot. The anemone hasn't budged from where it was assaulted, but it's looking fine, so I'll do another water change this afternoon and hope that's the end of it.

geekdafied · 03-06-2007, 02:03 AM

I started wrapping window screen around all things that suck in water to prevent things like that from happening. I got 2 anemones once and put them and I figured I wold let them find their own places to settle in. One went strait for the my filters intake and got sucked mostly in it. I pulled it up luckily it survived while my hand was wrapped in ticked off tentacles. So yes, anemones do sting you, haha.

G-Boy · 03-06-2007, 10:05 PM

Hey Rusty, sorry about your misfortune. I just wanted to put in my two cents. I would suggest to add a little iodine sup as per instructions to help in the healing process of the anemone. I had a bta wonder the tank and not thinking I stuck my hand in the tank to mess with the rockwork. The bta had attached to two diff rocks. I pulled him in half. The clown started eating the insides that were floating out of the wound. I was nasty. I did more often waterchanges (smaller volume) took most of the current away from were the two halfs attached to the rocks, and was sure to add the iodine supp 8 drops a day to my 50 gal. The two halves healed and now I have to very healthy btas. The odd part tho is that the smaller of the two still wanders the tank. The larger one found it's way back to the place it was before it started wondering and hasnt moved since.