Monday, January 4, 2010

Anemone vs. Koralia 1

Who won? The Powerhead did.

Yesterday morning I noticed the BTA on the right side of the tank had moved just a few inches from where it has lived for the last four months or so. I wasn't too concerned because it went back to it's original spot by the afternoon. By evening it was on the move again and was crawling up the glass only to be stopped by the branches of my Green Slimer. It retreated slightly by the time I went to bed. Just before bed I moved the closest Koralia 1 far away from the anemone as a precaution.

When I woke up this morning I turned on the lights in the tank to see what was formerly an anemone wrapped around the inside of another Koralia 1 in the tank. Part of the anemone was on the outside of the powerhead and part was on the inside and had been sucked through the protective grill. There was no saving it. It had to be ripped apart to free it from the powerhead.

I'm really bummed to see this guy get killed this way. This is the anemone that didn't look good a few months but then came back. Yesterday it was quite a beautiful animal and its tentacles were all bubbly while it was hosting my Maroon Clown part time. I had been thinking to myself just a few days earlier how neither of my two anemones had moved at all for the last several months.

What changed to make the anemone wander? The only thing I can think of is that I cleaned the acrylic light shield on my Nova Extreme Pro just two days earlier. I removed the entire cover and cleaned both sides in the bathtub. The inside had a good coating of dust and the outside had a good coating of salt spray. Perhaps the difference in light intensity was enough to upset the anemone. Perhaps it was upset because I hadn't been feeding my anemones lately because they were getting huge on their own. I'll never know.