My Heteractis Malu

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Hey Everyone!

I bought a heteractis malu from my LFS a few days ago and i knew that it was healthy because i read up on healthy anemones all night before i got it, i instantly fell in love with the look of this beautiful creature! when i put it into my tank i did all the things that you were meant to like turning all of the PH off and digging a hole in the substrate in which it could bury its foot in. and as i suspected in the morning he moved to a place where he would be more comfortable. he stayed there for 3 days right as rain with its tentacles fully spread out, then when i woke up this morning his foot was very big and unattached from the substrate, his tentacles werent fully closed infact he was quite big but the only problem was that we was on his side, for a few hours he attached his foot again but when the light went off he was unattached again?

does anyone have a answer to this very strange behaviour because ive been looking online for hours and hours trying to find an answer but no luck.

please help people, i wouldnt like to lose such a nice creature.
Louis M
 
Hey Louis I am no expert in the anemone area but here goes. Normally when an anemone moves it's because it's not happy in that area. In some cases the anemone will move by filling it's base(foot) with water and then drifts with the curents untill it finds an other spot. This is most likely why you found the nennie on it's side and also big and it's foot bloated. The first question I would like to ask is a pic of the nennie, because the malu nennie is almost always bleached when they arive at a pet shop. We need to see the health of the nennie because if it's bleached it will want to move to a shaded area. Next up how old is your tank, a tank should be 9 months old for the reasons that parameters should be as stable as possible. Sudden increases in nutrients or ph or whatever can proove fatal to a nennie. To know if your nennie is bleached it would be a cream white to a white colour. These nennies should most of the time be a rich brown. If the nennie is bleached the try and move it away from direct lighting (under a live rock shadow, corners of the tank), also try and start feeding it small pieces of mussel or hake or even linefish. Try to make the piece a 1/4 of the nennies mouth for now and slowly feed it untill it's consumed. Keep a close eye on your tank incase the nennie decides to spit out the food at a later time. If this does happen then feed even smaller food, you should feed everyday. In time the nennie will get better colour and will start to move into a more lighted part of the tank at this time you can start feeding bigger pieces(but never go bigger then half the size of the nennies mouth) when it's almost back to normal colour you can start feeding every second day, and when it's a rich brown then you can feed twice a week. Also another question, how big is your tank and what lighting are you running?

Here are pics of a bleached and healthy malu:
SabaeAnemone-pammy.jpg


heteractis%20crispa-common.jpg
 
Hey everyone sorry for the late reply but I only checked my email today. I have a 4 by 2 by 1 tank but I dont know how many litre's / gallons that is... I took my anemone back today because I thought that it was not really for me, I go on holiday quite frequently so if there was a problem with it whilst I was away then my tank would be in serious trouble, the malu was very healthy even though it would not settle. even the so called 'marine specialist' said it was very healthy but it has took a lot of weight of my shoulders knowing that my tank is safe again :p i check my tank regularly for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and it all looked good and i took a water sample to the LFS and they said that everything was perfect before i got the anemone so i do not know why it would not settle because i have 2 white T5 bulbs and 1 blue T5 and 2 power heads in the tank so it's a mystery to me why it didnt work out? :(
any way thank you for all your help everyone :)
 
Hi, you don't mention the wattage of your bulbs. Just having flow and lights does not always mean one can keep anemones.

Unless you have a shallow tank (less than 400mm) I'd recommend a MH for the nennie, or at least decent reflectors on your T5's.

Nennies should not be put in tanks younger than 6 months and I'd err on the side of caution and give the tank up to a year to stabilise.

Dunno why you were concerned on being a way a lot. Healty tanks = healty animals. Normally once a nenny is ahppy and has put his/her foot down, they will not move unless paramaters change drastically or they are unhappy.

If you say 4x2x1 tank, I assum feet. That would roughly = 200 litres. Do you run a sump and what size skimmer do you run?
 
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