[Aloysius]

I quit puzzled I bought a White Sebae Anemone from my local pet store. It was doing great in the store tank but he was behind a bunch of rocks in the back of the tank out of vew of person and light. Than I bring it home put it in my tank is doing good then hours later he is all shrunkin down smaller then his base arm no vew of the tenticals at all. So I go to bed turning off the light as I do every night and in the morning it is wide open looking like it did at the pet store. What gives???????? I have a 12 Gallon Nano Cube well you can look at my http://www.reefland.com/myaqlog/public.php?userid=9474 and see what I have in here........ Please provide me with some feedback. Thank you and good day... Keep on liven!!!!!

[Ninong]

Hi Aloysius,



You should seriously consider returning this anemone to the store. Your 12-gal tank is much too small to house this animal. Sorry.

It is quite natural for host sea anemones to close up at night. The reason they do that in the wild is because they don't want to expose their tentacles to unnecessary risk of predation and since most of their energy comes from their photosynthetic zooxanthellae, there is no need to expose themselves when the sun's not shining. So it's a very natural behavior. That doesn't mean it's going to happen that way all the time. In any case, don't worry about that part of it.

Please read this article by Dr. Ron Shimek on the proper care of host sea anemones. You will learn that they should be fed at least twice a week and that they require good lighting. They also require something larger than a 12-gal nano tank.

In order to keep a 12-gal nano tank successfully, you will have to be very careful in choosing appropriate livestock.