Anemone problem

[pgsasi]

People,
check out the pictures attached. that is my anemone before and now. its been bad for almost 3 weeks now. can someone tell me what is wrong with it ? every other tank inhabitants including the fishes and corals are perfectly all right. I am feeding my anemone with finely diced shrimp.. i guess he is eating it. my clown doesn't feed him at all..

Please let me know if you have any advice for me..

Cheers / Sashi

[zhenya]

It doesn't look all that bad to me, Sashi. Other than the fact that the tentacles lost it;s bubble tips I don't see anything different. There is slight color variation in the second image, but I think it is due to the color balance of the image and not the actual coloration of the anemone. If it is indeed turning "paler" and loosing color then I would worry that it is in the process of what we call "bleaching". When symbiotic algae called zooxanthellae. I hope it isn't the case here and it is simply a color balance difference between the two pictures.

As far as feeding your anemone, you don't really need to fine chop your food. Small pieces, let say a quarter of an inch to half inch is perfectly OK to feed to your anemone.
I used to feed my bubble tip anemones with silverside fish and never bothered chopping them up, none was refused...

Let me know what exactly that you see that is appearing "bad" to your eye, perhaps I don't see the same things that you see looking at it directly.

[pgsasi]

Hi,
The bright coloration on the tentacles is not to be seen anymore. the tentacles are pale now.. the tip is not to be seen anymore.. the anemone shrinks down to its smallest size most times and it opens up fully in darkness only. I am scared because I have read in forums here that a dead anemone can cause more trouble to an aquarium by disintegrating. I wanted to make sure that my anemone is not going to cause any damage to the aquarium.

please advice on how to get the anemone back to its normal self.

Cheers / Sashi

[zhenya]

The bright coloration on the tentacles is not to be seen anymore. the tentacles are pale now.. the tip is not to be seen anymore.. the anemone shrinks down to its smallest size most times and it opens up fully in darkness only.

Well, that's what I thought. Most likely what you see is the begining of the bleaching process, in other words the animal is stressed.
It could be environmental issues (your aquarium water chemistry, lack of proper lighting, too much water flow...you name it), and it could be that it lacks proper nutrition and it also could be that your clownfish is stressing it with constant presence inside of the tentacles.

I think the best thing you can do is to make sure that your water parameters are perfect(salinity and temperature at least) and keep offering it food(shrimp, silversides and other meaty stuff that you feed your fish). Don't expect your clownfish to feed it, it is more of a myth than fact.

I am scared because I have read in forums here that a dead anemone can cause more trouble to an aquarium by disintegrating. I wanted to make sure that my anemone is not going to cause any damage to the aquarium.

Don't be scared. Keep an eye on it and if you see that it starts to break apart that's the clue to remove it from the tank. Give it some more time to recover and adapt to your tank, it may surrize you to know that anemones are quite resilient creatures.., but delicate at the same time.