Anenome advice needed

[seerious]

Hi all,
i have a 55 gallon with VHO's housing assorted corals, hard and soft, as well as two clowns, two bangai cardinals, two gobies and a bubble-tipped anenome which is HUGE, so i'm very happy with his growth, BUT recently i added a bi-colored angel which was devoured by the anenome within hours...someone heard "splashing" from the tank but didn't think to wake me...so in the morning i discovered the angel in the anenome which then disgourged the remains in a gel-like cocoon...my only concern is how likely is it that he'll likely eat the rest of the occupants, except for the resident clowns? or will frequent feedings deter him from going on another "killing spree" : )
This is the first instance of the anenome eating a fish, up till now he's not bothered with any of the fish in the tank who swim right by him.
Just curious...thanks

 

[sharks]

What type of anemone is it? Most fish learn to avoid them and maybe the angels was chased or stressed into stumbling into it??? Hard to say for sure. I recommend adding fish and then give them plenty of hours in the tank while the lights are on to learn their new environment. Then again sometimes S@#$ happens :hammerhea and we just can’t help it.
Sorry for the loss

Also welcome to RS

 

[sharks]

Also you may already be aware but most anemones need very good lighting and clean water. Monitor your water parameters well and be sure to stay on top of bulb replacements. Then there is the dreaded power head problem. Try to keep all PH’s out of the system and if that isn’t an option use prefilters on them.
To be honest I hate selling anemones to most people. You should know that they are the hardest kept animals and in the wild they have almost no predators. Thus they have an unknown lifespan in most cases. It is believed that they can live over 100 years in some species. There are a few nudi that eat them but they are huge and not found in the home aquarium.

 

[Montanareefer]

Also you may already be aware but most anemones need very good lighting and clean water. Monitor your water parameters well and be sure to stay on top of bulb replacements. Then there is the dreaded power head problem. Try to keep all PH’s out of the system and if that isn’t an option use prefilters on them.
To be honest I hate selling anemones to most people. You should know that they are the hardest kept animals and in the wild they have almost no predators. Thus they have an unknown lifespan in most cases. It is believed that they can live over 100 years in some species. There are a few nudi that eat them but they are huge and not found in the home aquarium.

I totally agree!

 

[ReefLady]

seerious,

Welcome! This is the first I've heard of a Bubble-tip eating a fish. First time for everything, I guess!

What it sounds like to me, is that the angel, not being familiar with the tank, either swam head first into the anemone, or was chased into it. Ouch! I'd venture a guess that your other fish, being more familiar with the setup of your tank, will likely avoid the anemone. The anemone doesn't have the ability to *grasp* the fish unless they swim into it's tentacles and stick to it.

FWIW, this anemone, given it's size, we probably appreciate being fed a small chunk of raw seafood weekly or thereabouts. You may have to experiment a bit to find out what kind it prefers, but they definitely love to be fed.

Welcome, and I'd love to see some pics of the tank sometime!

 

[Maxx]

Reeflady has given you some good info. I have heard many people suggest that feeding an anemone just prior to releasing a new fish in the tank (some 10 minutes or so) is a good idea, particularly w/ the carpets. This will cause the anemone to fold up and eat its meal, causing it to be less of a threat towards new arrivals in the tank. It regurgutated the angel cause it was too big to digest properly...anemones will do this from time to time. Sounds like you've got a healthy anemone of your hands, congrats,
Nick
BTW Jupitor has a lot of anemone experiance, you might ask him if you have further questions...

 

[jupiter]

Well thanks for the kind words, Maxx.

Frankly, Seerious, I think the angel was ill in the first place. BTAs are not very good at holding large, moving food. In order for the fish to be held it would have had to be lacking in strength.

Other options (most already have been mentioned) would be that the fish was "scared" into the anemone and repeatedly stung or the fish chose to hide too near the anemone in which case it was snatched up. But even a carpet anemone can't catch a healthy, alert fish (they seem to get them mostly at night).

But more of interest to you would probably be how to prevent this from happening again. The first choice is to get rid of the anemone - but you don't want to do this The second is to quarantine any fishes before you add them to the tank. This way you can monitor the fish for illness. You don't even need to do a full-blown quarantine; just a day or two. It might be that the fish was on its way to dead and the anemone just hastened it.

Don't be discouraged, though. BTAs are not big aquarium fish-eaters and whatever happened is very uncommon (like RL, I don't remember ever hearing of it). I keep two carpets and a BTA and in the years of these inverts (and of all other anemones I've tried) I've never lost a new fish to them. Fishes are innately conscious of anemones and corals and don't usually get caught by them. Host anemones prefer smaller prey which is easier to handle and less likely to damage their delicate body.