[Dracunculus]

I have tried putting bubble tip anemones in my tank twice, and I think that I may have fallen prey to the desire to "do something" that will get them better. Each of them did well for the first three days or so, then went through extended periods of contraction. My water quality was consitently good both times, with pH 8.2, salinity 1.025, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and about 10 nitrates. I think where I failed was in assuming they needed to feed more when they were in this shriveled state and attempting to get food into them. They had both found spots that they seemed to like and did not move from them. However after a few days while shriveled, they began to deteriorate, developing holes in their bodies and feet and eventually detaching from the rock entirely. At that point I took them out of the tank so as not to risk fouling it with their dead bodies. When I had gotten both of them, I inspected their feet to make sure that they were intact. As an aside, I think the second one might have been stressed by my clownfish, since they had taken up residence almost immediately...that coupled with the move to the new tank may have been too much.

Given everything I have read since saying how tough BTAs are and how well they can recuperate, I wonder whether I might have been better off leaving them in the tank to see if they would recover instead of assuming they were dying and taking them out while i could.

I have been successful keeping other cnidarians (leathers, favia brain, montipora, pavona, plerogyra, zoos, and ricordea) so I am not certian why I might have had a problem with anemones. Will probably give it a go once more in the future....the clownfish/anemone symbiosis is one of the things that got me interested in reef keeping in the first place.