Injured Anem - Noooooooo!

green BTA -

80 gallon Reef system about 9 months(but moved a month ago) -
250watt 14k MH lighting w/ 4 t5 actinics.

All parameters as of Friday good - calcium high at 500, did a 20gallon water change and going to re check parameters today now its had time to settle in and such...

Now to my issue -

Green BTA came attached to a small rock, we set him where we thought he would be happiest and he settled in, ate some small squid cuts, domino damsel showing it some rubbin' love -

He had a small 1/3" size piece of his foot attached to the rock it came on while moving into a more perm spot - in the process the rock fell and ripped a 1/3"x1/3" piece of foot and side material off him and looks like maybe some tissue but not organs. My first thought when i saw it was OH $h1t NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO - I let it be, it was drawn up but not all the way.

day2
Seemed like it was doing better, was still not up to full self as before the accident - I took some shrimp, cut it up and it ate three nice sized chunks readily and quickly opened up pretty nicely. last night about 11pm it opened its mouth and I thought it was just expelling waste from its hearty meal earlier in the day... but not so sure, mouth opened pretty wide for a while -

Day 3
this morning he is pretty shrunk in rock and deflated considerably - i touched some outer tentacles to see if I get any reaction and still do.

Is there hope? the chunk looked pretty nasty that came off, but i was encouraged by it eating so much yesterday -

We have only had it for about a week, it moved into a spot it liked the first night and never moved after that...

I do not have a QT or any other tank to put it in nor the equipment setup to do it either.

Here is a pic of it this morning and a fts as well -

 

Particularly since you have no QT tank, the only thing to do is to watch closely. I am not sure how often you feed but you may want to hold off on that for a while and let it spend its energy healing instead of digesting. Keep a close eye to make sure the mouth is not gaping or it showing other signs of severe stress. Im sure there are others with much more experience that me who may chime in but it seems as if it will just be a matter of watching and waiting.

 

Yeah im going to be keep a very close eye - I work from home and the display is literally next to my desk.
I debated whether to feed it yesterday or not but thought it might help it gain some strength but I see your point on energy diversion...

Thanks - I really hope it makes it, we looked around for a while for a specific match for our tank, watched this one at the lfs for health, etc before buying....

Tom

 

It looks like its still fine. Tentacles are still out. I would leave it, just keep an eye on it. Not much you can do. The less you stress it the better. Keep everything stable and don't make any changes for a while.

 

I agree with Toallhisdoom in that he looks good in the pick. Even after it recovers, make sure not to over feed. That is not their primary source of nutrition anyway.

 

Thanks - appreciate the replies.. will keep an eye on it - REALLY hoping it gets better -

Tom

 

+1 to all above, I would also stop feeding it so much. That could be part of the problem, my nem always shrank when I feed it.

 

It kind of looks like it might be splitting - not sure - it looks about the same in the pic but it looks like where the mouth is its split to one side - but the injury wasnt near the mouth -

Still watching and seeing - at first this morning he was very small and drawn up but as the lights have been on it has puffed up more about like the pic above -

 

Remember this is anemone type you can remove from a tank, slap on a cutting board and slice in half and it still recovers.

I imagine it will indeed separate.

 

That would not be a bad thing - its a VERY pretty anem when extended, I just want it to live at this point. We always try to be good hosts to the critters in our tanks....

Tom