Sea Apples

Thanks everyone, I just took it out for now (and put it in a small container) I am going to leave in a few to get water to do a water change then it will have a big tub of water for the night. I appreciate all of you responses and once again am very grateful for this wonderful site!

 

I wouldn't worry about it so much. My LFS guy told me (and he is good) that they are hardy creatures that do not require light and can be fed about once weekly. His only warning was to NOT put it in a tank where a fish will constantly nip at it. If that happens, it will secrete the toxin and kill the tank out of self defense. My hermits have been on it. My snails have been on it. My fish have regarded it with curiousity, but do not consider it a food. He also told me that if I did not feed it, it will basically shrivel up to nothing and that is that. So I feed it once weekly and it constantly has it's crown open and feeds itself from the water column otherwise.

Now......if it still stresses you out, take it back. It is not worth having something in your tank that you have to constantly worry about. I am like that with my anenome. I would much rather have a sea apple than an anenome given the choice. Both are potential tank killers. Here are a few pics of mine just to show off.

Open Crown



Feeding itself

 

That thing is so cool. So it lowers its branches at its mouth like that? How quick does it move them?

 

About 5 seconds to the mouth, 5 seconds in the mouth and 5 seconds to original state. I had no idea it did that when I bought it. I love watching it. It must sense debris in the crown arm and pull toward the mouth when the signal is given. It is random. It does not go around in a circle or anything like that. I'll see about putting a video up on utube and hyperlinking it this weekend.

 

It is way cool, unfortunately last night it died in the container that I had it in. (i think anyways) it seems unhealthy. The guy emailed me back and said I could bring it back today. Ugh. Hopefully it's just "sleeping" lol. Beautiful creature though and fun to watch. Unfortunately I wasn't ready for it. That's what I get for buying something on impulse, I get to flush $20 if it's dead.

 

Ditto to everything that was said above (both pro and con) and I have personal experience to prove it. My LFS encouraged me to buy it saying that it would fit in beautifually with my tank. I didn't check it out either. It was lovely for several months; then it died. Before I could get it out of the tank half of my fish had died. When I called my LFS, he said he knew that this could happen. I asked him why he would have me put a potentially dangerous invertebrate in my tank and he just gave me a bunch of garbage. He did give me a "medication" that counteracts the toxin. I don't remember the name, but it apparently saved the rest of my fish.