Anemone Cut By Powerhead

[gotteeguy]

This morning I found my green carpet anemone partly INside one of the koralia powerheads. He somehow fit part of himself through the TINY cracks in it and about 1 or 2 square inches of his tentacles have been like shaved off. I know they can recover from this. Should I put it in QT? I am dosing the tank with microlift herbtana, a reef safe parasite killer. Will this harm the injured anemone?

 

[milkton]

lol,exactly what happened to my bubble tip a year ago... It was wandering at night and in the morning half of it was stuck in the powerhead. I did a water change but fortuneatly the damage to my anemone wasnt lethal, it just shaved off some of its tenticles and part of its side. I just moved it to a pretty good area with a hole for its base and it has stayed there ever since, almost like it "learned" how to not move around anymore. Hope this helps.

 

[gotteeguy]

Did it regrow? How long did it take?

 

[milkton]

Im not quite sure if it regrew or not because when it was cut, the damage looked like it just got fragged into a smaller piece except that 1 side is larger than the other. It has definately grown bigger for sure but that little area i can still see a bit of a "scar" if u will. Like it is kinda lumped in. Sorry, i cant get a picture until i stop buying livestock and invest in a good camera , but if you have any more questions, ill try to answer from what i remember.

 

[gotteeguy]

After it was cut up, How long did you wait before target feeding it again?

 

[milkton]

Once cut, obviously my anemone was stressed out. Fortuneatly, on the 2nd or 3rd day? it inflated a little, my goal was to feed it as soon as possible because it can gain some more nutrients to regrow. So at night, when all fish was asleep i gave it a zoe absorbed silverside and it ate it happily.

Try aiming for pristine water conditions and put something like a sponge that fits into your powerhead so it doesnt happen again. What i do is stick caulpera on the powerhead so it acts like a sponge and it covers the powerhead which looks pretty good to me . Despite the fact that when the caulpera tries to root, it may clog up your powerhead and damage the motor, so its pretty risky.

If your stats are fine, and hopefully the damage wasnt too big, it shouldnt be a problem. Do you have any pics of your anemone at this stage? How is it doing right now?

EDIT* oops, forgot to mention that if your anemone is dieing, take it out quickly. It is believed that a dieing anemone can nuke your whole tank.

 

[gotteeguy]

Thank for the info. My nem is not dying. It is also eating well, so I shouldn't have any problems. I put a mesh bag over the powerhead and it seems to work.