'Curly-Q' Anemone lost its head, now what?

[OHmariner]

Hello fellow reefers! So a while back I got a small Zoa frag and it had a hitch-hicker anemone. I had a hard time identifying it, some people called it a glass anemone, the most 'accurate' slang name I heard was a 'curly-q' anemone. Pardon my lack of a better understanding.

Long story short, the anemone moved when I first got it and it grew into a beautiful anemone. I had the 'nem' for about 6 months and it never stopped growing. I would feed it everytime I fed the tank and it ate everything I fed to it. The other day I fed it and it was fine. The next morning it was shriveled up and the whole head was separated from the base. A day later the whole head fell off! I thought it was dead so I went to pull the base of the 'nem' out of the rock and it pulled away like it was still alive!!

So what is the deal? Do I have a zombie anemone or do some anemonens shed their main 'head' once in a while? Could I have fed him some bad food? Everything else in the tank is ok (except a little colony of palm tree polyps on the back wall, they almost completely died over-night like the nem did. I have since done a big waterchange and my fish and other creatures all look normal.

Ill attach a pic of the anemone when it is healthy, a pic of the head becoming detached and a pic of the 'base' of the anemone as it looks today. If I poke the base it retracts, its definitely not dead.

 

[OHmariner]

Im sure you want my parameters, even though im more concerned with the actual behavor of the anemone itself.
Temp: 80F
Salinity: 1.026
Cal: 440
dKH: 7 right now, (i use Pro Buffer dKH to shoot for 8-9, this test was right before a waterchange,last waterchange was a week ago)
Ph: 8.4ish (I don't have a calibrated digital Ph meter, I don't trust the API kit I currently use so thats why I say "8.4 ish")

 

[GrendelPrime]

looks like u have some hair algae in there so i would be more concerned with ur phos and nitrate, thats weird thou ive never heard of nems doin that

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

It looks like what you have is a large aiptasia. It looks a lot like the one on the first photo here.

This is, to the best of my knowledge, NOT a normal behavior with most anemones kept in reef aquariums. But then again, almost everyone with aiptasia try their hardest to kill them since they are probably one of the most hard to deal with pests in the hobby. Maybe it's normal for them? Who knows.

 

[OHmariner]

Grendel, Ive been battleing the algea for a while now, im fairly confident my tank is saturated with phosphate, the problem is well into the recovery stage and not all of these picures are from the same time period. My point is, nitrates and phosphate are nowhere near a level of concern for the creatures. The tank is several years old and I recovered it from someone who didnt care for it very well, I am still cleaning up after the old owner.

Chipmunk, I highly doubt it is a large aptaisa(even though it is in the same family, it doesnt behave the same way, if mine was aptaisa I beleive it would have taken over the tank by now), ive spent a lot of time making sure it wasn't aptaisa, I will look for the website I found with the best ID for it and post what I found so you can 'see' my reasoning, EDIT: I found several sites listing the curly-q nem but I couldnt find the original one I was thinking off.

I guess at this point ill just keep a sharp eye on it and see what happens, Im not sure what else to do, I could remove the rock its in but it also has some nice Zoas on it and it a big part of my mini aquascape....

 

[JulesVane]

The base still looks kinda' "healthy", what became of the "head"? I wouldn't doubt it drifts somewhere and grows a new base and vice-versa.

 

[OHmariner]

The base still looks kinda' "healthy", what became of the "head"? I wouldn't doubt it drifts somewhere and grows a new base and vice-versa.

Holy crap I didnt even think of that, my first order of business was to find the head this morning, I found it and threw it away before it could decompose...I didnt realize it might be reproducing! Come to think of it, the head was relatively healthy looking for what had just happened to it...

 

[bigdog1428]

its something like a tube anenome,,,,kinda like a feather duster ,,it will remove its head and regrow another one ,,,if the base is still connected to rock, it will grow back bigger then before ,,,that is if it is a tube anenome ,,,

 

[bigdog1428]

It looks like what you have is a large aiptasia. It looks a lot like the one on the first photo here.

This is, to the best of my knowledge, NOT a normal behavior with most anemones kept in reef aquariums. But then again, almost everyone with aiptasia try their hardest to kill them since they are probably one of the most hard to deal with pests in the hobby. Maybe it's normal for them? Who knows.

yes it def looks like that glass tube anenome ,,i thinks its gorgouse to be honest with you ,,i love anenomes

 

[OHmariner]

its something like a tube anenome,,,,kinda like a feather duster ,,it will remove its head and regrow another one ,,,if the base is still connected to rock, it will grow back bigger then before ,,,that is if it is a tube anenome ,,,

Its regrowing the head now, its growing fast! Ill post an update picture soon

 

[anewguy]

yup its a curley-cue nem' same species as a aiptasia just not as invasive. aparantly it was pretty happy with you to try to start reproducing on you. they will ocassionally drop the head in the hopes of finding another good spot for another whole nem. i have a friend who had one big one (and i do mean BIG!) after 9 months of direct feeding it grew to be about 10 inches across at the head and probably 6 inches high. it took over his 34 gallon. i myself had 3 at on point. just small ones about an inch or so. they dont come off the rock very well so i had to toss one rock, caught another wondering across an acan one night, and the third ive just been annoying with lemon juice and boiling water. they are interesting but not really shure if its worth it to try to keep one in a small tank.

 

[OHmariner]

Update: The little guy is slowly growing back, Id post a pic but now its just a mini version of the original pic I posted. Im not direct feeding it anymore. I was affraid I would have to remove the whole rock to eliminate it so for now Im letting it go. The only problem I have had with it (besides taking up a corner of my tank) is eating a peppermint shrimp. Its possible the shrimp died and floated into its tenticles but one morning I found the shell of the shrimp still kind of stuck in it tenticles.

Other than that, he has been a neat hitch-hiker. Right now it is 1/3 the size of the original, I hope it doesn't grow back to be much larger!!