Sea Anemone

My sea anemone has started wandering!!!!!!! The water tested fine. I have had it 4 weeks and it only started wandering when the clown fish started hosting. Are they the reason for the wandering?

Also it wanders into the power heads!!!! He also goes to the bottom upside down!!! Do i turn him over?? Any ideas how to stop him comiting suicide in the power head??

Or is it bad water or Lighting

Cheers Stu


A pic with it upside down!!!

A wandering nem is an unhappy nem. What sort of flow and lighting do you have, and what are the test results for things like pH, Phosphates, nitrates etc?

Make sure the entry to the powerheads are covered to prevent the nem from chopping itself to a thousand bits.

Water levels are

PH - 8.2
Am - Nil
Nitrate - Nil
Nitrite - Nil

Lighting 2x 18" 15w arcadia marine blue T8
2x 36" 30w arcadia marine white T8

I cant test any thing else. Do i need to? i can go to my mates hes got loads of test kits? water change was done the day after it start wandering. Do i need to do it again?

My guess is that it doesn't like the light. Very few nems can be kept under T8 lights for any great length of time.

andywg said:

My guess is that it doesn't like the light. Very few nems can be kept under T8 lights for any great length of time.

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Agreed, the nem in that pic also looks pretty bleached which indicates it's been in a stressed state for some time now. I would think that stronger lighting and a prayer are your best bets at this point

Though stronger lighting will be necessary in the long run, a bleached nem (or anything) needs low light at first or else it will become "sunburnt". I myself have accidentaly killed an anemone by placing it under too high light when it was bleached. The only way it has a chance is heavy feeding, at least 2-3 times a week with squid, prawn or silversides, followed by a gradual increase to metal halide or boosted fluorescent light. It is probably wandering either because it is hungry, or because it is stressed by allelopathic toxins (produced by other corals).

Lastly, that nem to me looks like a malu (Heteractis malu), and in that case they should be in or near the sand bed, preferably.

Bump. Any updates?