Bubble Tipped Anemone - Shooting Cloudy Mist

[Booge]

We were given a white bubble tipped anemone yesterday by a friend who was decommissioning his tank. It was doing well until five minutes ago when it started releasing a white cloudy mist into the tank. What does it mean? We don't have any experience with anemones and the tomato clown fish is lost without it because we removed the anemone from the tank. The tank looks like it has had a litre of milk dumped into it. Is this something that we should be worried about?

[Elegance Coral]

It sounds like the anemone spawned. I would do a LARGE water change and put the anemone back in the tank. Make sure you have fresh activated carbon and keep an eye on your mechanical filter, it may clog up very fast.

Your situation is a little confusing though. It's not all that uncommon for stress, like being moved from one tank to another, to trigger spawning. It is uncommon for "white" anemones to spawn. "White" typically means the animal is bleached and wouldn't have the resources to spawn. Is the anemone totally white, or just white on the tentacles? How long did your friend have the anemone before you got it?

[Booge]

The anemone was white with pink tips. It had anchored onto the live rock and was a very pale pink where it had anchored. Not a lot a colour though. Our friend had had the anemone for about six months and he said it always been white.

We went to our LFS today and was told that anemones usually aren't white and that is a sign that they are sick.

[Geoff]

Welcome to TRT!!



in most cases a white anemone is not a healthy one. the clown will be just fine without an anemone. they have been known to host with power heads. they are not picky.

spawning can also be a last ditch effort of a dying coral/anemone to try and continue the line.

G~

[ReefenOnTheEdge]

Could you have a condylactis gigantea? ( a condy) anemone? They are white w/ pink tips. You can google the name.

[Elegance Coral]

Originally Posted by ReefenOnTheEdge

Could you have a condylactis gigantea? ( a condy) anemone? They are white w/ pink tips. You can google the name.

They're only white with pink tips after they have bleached. In the wild their zooxanthellae are clearly visible.

[tdwyatt]

How unusual that an animal that has been bleached for six months would spawn, usually they do not put the energy into spawning (gamete formation for sexual reproduction is very energy costly) unless zoox are present and the anemone is feeding and lighting is good. Asexual fission, on the other hand, IS a usual response to changes in the environment, injury, etc., as a last ditch survival-type of response.
Just curious, did you get chance to look at the "mist" under a microscope?

[ReefenOnTheEdge]

Originally Posted by Elegance Coral

They're only white with pink tips after they have bleached. In the wild their zooxanthellae are clearly visible.

Have you seen a condy? Please google. Or have you seen any pictures from Ronald L. Shimek,PH.D. ?His book Marine Invertebrates on page 101, shows a beatiful, healthy white w/ pink tip condy. The column is white, the tentacles are white and the tips are either pink, red, purple, green or yellow.

[tlgreve]

hmm... All of my condys at work are usually a light brown. Could you mean a light brown instead of white? like this: http://www.saltwaterfish.com/site_11...ot_parent_id=4

[Elegance Coral]

Originally Posted by ReefenOnTheEdge

Have you seen a condy? Please google. Or have you seen any pictures from Ronald L. Shimek,PH.D. ?His book Marine Invertebrates on page 101, shows a beatiful, healthy white w/ pink tip condy. The column is white, the tentacles are white and the tips are either pink, red, purple, green or yellow.

Have I seen a Condy?

I don't need to google. I live in Florida. My favorite vacation destination is the Florida Keys. I've literally been there hundreds of times. Even got married there once. (Man was that stupid) I've seen thousands of Condy's in their natural habitat. Even collected a few. Here's a pic of me collecting one of these anemones. Pardon the quality. It's a digital picture of a 35mm photograph. Even with the poor quality, you can clearly see zooxanthellae. It is not white. It's tan, like all the rest. Some have more secondary pigments, pinks and purples, than this one, but none of them are white when healthy.

[lagrew]

s

[ReefenOnTheEdge]

[quote=Elegance Coral;1499741]Have I seen a Condy?

I don't need to google. I live in Florida. My favorite vacation destination is the Florida Keys. I've literally been there hundreds of times. Even got married there once. (Man was that stupid) I've seen thousands of Condy's in their natural habitat. Even collected a few. Here's a pic of me collecting one of these anemones. Pardon the quality. It's a digital picture of a 35mm photograph. Even with the poor quality, you can clearly see zooxanthellae. It is not white. It's tan, like all the rest. Some have more secondary pigments, pinks and purples, than this one, but none of them are white when h
I bow down to your greatness. I have only seen healthy white condys....
ops...they are not healthy....so that was what i purchased...evan though it has grown to double in size and has flowing full white tentacles I promise that as soon as I am done typing I will take my clowns happy home and throw it in the compost pile so it won't sufer any longer. And I will stay out of this reef tank club.

[icebear]

think maybe it was dissolving, or puking up something that was fed to it?

[Elegance Coral]

Originally Posted by ReefenOnTheEdge;1499775I bow down to your greatness. I have only seen healthy white condys....
ops...they are not healthy....so that was what i purchased...evan though it has grown to double in size and has flowing full white tentacles I [B

promise[/b] that as soon as I am done typing I will take my clowns happy home and throw it in the compost pile so it won't sufer any longer. And I will stay out of this reef tank club.

See.....Now why do you have to be like that? There's no need to get upset. I was not trying to flaunt my greatness or anything like that. I was simply trying to help you and anyone else that may be reading this thread.

There are tons of people that believe some of the species of anemone we keep should be white. Probably because some of them, like Condy's and H. crispa, are white when they enter the hobby. If no one tells them their anemone is ill, they won't know to try and help it.

[biowheel]

I'm one of them . I've been nursing a bleached BTA for 5 1/2 months . Without the help and direction of TRT it would be gone . Here's a link if your interested to learn what bleached anemones look like and how they look as they get better .
http://www.thereeftank.com/forums/f7...ml#post1498391