Killer anemone?

[sawyerc]

Seemingly perfect fish have been slowly dissapearing from my 55 gallon tank - here one day, gone the next without a trace. Missing so far: two chromis, two blue damsels, a cardinal, and a yellow tang. Only my two tank bred clowns and my royal gramma basset have made it. The fish started to dissapear after adding rock from a friend's tank, an anemone from a friend's tank (don't know what kind - it sits flat on the ground burried in sand, 3-4 inch diameter mouth exposed, green), and a wavemaker (wave2k model, the kind with a paddle that moves up and down).

Is the anemone eating the fish? Or should I keep an eye out for a hungry crab or mantis shrimp? I haven't seen or heard anything at night, but I haven't looked to hard. I'll try setting up a trap.

Or could it be that the fish are getting sucked into the wavemaker? (unlikely but worth considering)

 

[ThrillYa]

How's your population of crabs and snails doing? If they are disappearing too I would look for a well feed mantis.

 

[Anonymous]

From your description it sounds like a species of Stichodactyla ( Carpet Anemone). They are quite capable of eating your fish. Without a picture though I can't be sure. Can you describe the Anemone more?
Size
Tentacle length
Oral disc size
Mouth size
Color of mouth
Color of base
Any other features
Are you feeding it?

Regards,
David Mohr
.

 

[Oceans Ferevh]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA....Sorry. I had the same thing happen to me, except not to that magnetude. My anemone eat my four wheeler goby and crawled and rolled around the tank stinging everything around it. Pest Get rid of it, That's my advice

 

[sawyerc]

It's symettrical, it burries everything except its tentacles and mouth. Everything exposed is a pale green color with a little brown. The tentacles sit flat on the sand and are almost fern shaped. The total diamter is about three or four inches, maybe more, with the mouth occupying about 1.5-2 of those inches of diameter, it moves around a lot and right now it's not visable which is why I can't describe it all that well. I never paid much attention to it. I don't feed it but it seems to be happy (eating my fish?). The snails and crabs don't seem to be disappearing. I lost a cleaner shrimp recently after I bought two - the second one is still alive and looking good after three months, and from the lack of aiptasia I would assume that my peppermint shrimp are still around even though they're never visible. Time to remove the anemone?

 

[Anonymous]

It's symettrical, it burries everything except its tentacles and mouth. Everything exposed is a pale green color with a little brown. The tentacles sit flat on the sand and are almost fern shaped. The total diamter is about three or four inches, maybe more, with the mouth occupying about 1.5-2 of those inches of diameter, it moves around a lot and right now it's not visable which is why I can't describe it all that well. I never paid much attention to it. I don't feed it but it seems to be happy (eating my fish?). The snails and crabs don't seem to be disappearing. I lost a cleaner shrimp recently after I bought two - the second one is still alive and looking good after three months, and from the lack of aiptasia I would assume that my peppermint shrimp are still around even though they're never visible. Time to remove the anemone?

Are you saying the tentacles are serrated like a fern?
If it's moving around it's not a coral.
I'd target feed it pieces of thawed frozen silverside, squid, shrimp etc.
It still sounds like a small S. mertensii but the tentacles still have me confused.
Did you purchase this or was it a hitchhiker?
A picture would be great.

Regards,
David Mohr

 

[sawyerc]

The tentacles are serrated like a fern. Each tentacle looks like a small, thin, flat fern leaf. A friend of mine ditched to hobby and left me with him. It's definitely not a coral, and it's moved a few times since I put it in four months ago. Sorry, no picture as he's hidden from view right now. I looked up s mertensii and that's definitely not it. This anemone is much rounder, more symmetric, smaller, less attractive and flatter on the sand. I do not beleive that it's a host anemone, certainly not a carpet. I'm tempted to say that the industry might call it a flowerpot anemone but i have no idea if that's at all accurate. Any ideas?

 

[sawyerc]

Okay, I found it on wetwebmedia, it's a Heteractis aurora. Is he guilty? What does the jury think?

 

[Anonymous]

Okay, I found it on wetwebmedia, it's a Heteractis aurora. Is he guilty? What does the jury think?

8O
From your description of the tentacles it doesn't fit, they have tentacles like a string of beads, but ok.
H. aurora tend to derive most of their needs through photosyntesis but do capture meaty foods. Yes it's possible for it to eat your fish but unlikely, I would definitely look into other causes.

Regards,
David Mohr