Anenome Bleaching?

Hi, This Lovely blue sand anenome has been in my tank now about 2 weeks, as you can see by the first pic, she is a beauty of life, but in the second pic took today she's not looking to good, think she's bleaching, if so what can i do to cure and save her?






You can clearly see the difference.

Water params are
ammonia-0
nitrate-0
nitrite-0
PH-8.2
temp-80f
mag-1150
calcium-390
alk-7
phos-0.03
salinity-1.025

 

I thnk she looks better in the second pic. I dont know anything about the bleaching process and I wonder also why her mouth is dialated like that. I am sure the answer will be here soon. Have you been doing any feeding? load a baster up with brine or mysis and see if she eats...good luck with a really pretty animal maybe th eflow in the area she is in isnt suitable....have you tried moving her around or did she pick the spot?

 

The color is definitely something to keep an eye on. Generally when an anemone is starting to bleach, it will start at the tentacles and disc and work down the foot. Is the foot still a rich color? My anemone is starting to recover from a bleaching episode which was started by a slightly elevated PO3 level. Your's also looks to have receeded slightly. I noticed on my BTA, it would shrink when the temps got into the 79-80º range, but would get big when I kept the tank cooler, in the 76º range. Anemones are extreme O2 hogs, so having warmer temps will lower the dissolved oxygen levels in the tank. Try lowering your temp some, if you can. As for the color and the mouth being open, he is in need of meaty food. The loss of color is an effect of being hungry, the mouth being open is a sign. Anemones are strange, too much light will cause bleaching, not enough light will cause bleaching, not manually feeding it enough can cause bleaching too. Remember it needs food in the water column to feed the zooxanthellae algae, which in turn will feed the anemone when it photosynthesizes. Keeping a daylight spectrum lighting 6500K-10000K bulb will help the zooxanthellae grow. If you can move the anemone closer to the light, see how it reacts to it. Mine has started to get color back and just last night moved down away from the light a bit. If it needs to be in the sand, see if you can get a safe container, fill it with sand and move it up a tad.

 

The sand anenome is under 300watts of 14k metal halides, the water is only 19" deep, so i can't see it being lack of light, too much or lack of food maybe, will try feeding it, what will it eat?

The foot is still a bright red solid colour, but she is barely stuck to the rock....