[lilwigs]

My cousin has a Haddoni carpet that he feeds small pieces of cocktail shrimp . Anyway, I was at his house today and I saw him feed it, I saw the anemone swallow the little chunk(it dissapeared) and kept it in for abt 3 hours before spitting it out. Why did he spit it out? My cousin says he does that everytime he feeds him. Is this normal, do they extract what they need from the food then spit it out? Weird........

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by lilwigs

My cousin has a Haddoni carpet that he feeds small pieces of cocktail shrimp . Anyway, I was at his house today and I saw him feed it, I saw the anemone swallow the little chunk(it dissapeared) and kept it in for abt 3 hours before spitting it out. Why did he spit it out? My cousin says he does that everytime he feeds him. Is this normal, do they extract what they need from the food then spit it out? Weird........

Usually, when my anemones accept food there is nothing left to spit out. Everything is digested, including bones, fins...I feed silversides mostly. Table shrimp should be fed whole( meaning that it should be unshelled).
It sounds like the food was regected after anemone swalowed it, which in itself is rather normal(if it is not the food item it wants). I would suggest trying some other type of food, silversides or even some larger mysid shrimp, krill, etc.. untill some type of food is accepted.
How long since this anemone was introduced to the tank? Is it attached to anything?