What is my anemone doing?!

[Camona2333]

Ok so I have 6 Bubble tip anemones and though some of them have sometimes looked like they were dying, this one just has me baffled.

It started doing this about 2 days ago. It is a pale yellow-whitish normally, but now it has little round white clumps that seem to be like emerging from inside it. It's not tentacles (the tentacles are more yellow) and it looks kind of like gravel, but when you touch the white clumps, they're soft, not hard. I was wondering if anyone has any idea what is wrong with my anemone.

The first picture is what it looked like originally and the others are pictures of it now. It's kind of hard to tell with the new pictures, but the white thing in the center is the anemone and the white clumps are the clumps I was talking about, not tentacles. Thanks.

[unleashed]

Well, it actually looks like it is dying to tell you the truth. However, if the pictures are clearer it might not be as bad

[Camona2333]

Yea, I kind of had a feeling that he was dying. :( I hope he doesn't, but he probably will... Probably because I finally stopped the clownfish from going over to him ever... *sighs* I guess death is an experimental result...but it's so sad...he was my second prettiest BTA.

And I tried to make the pictures as clear as I could. The camera just sucked. Sorry. That's why I tried to describe it as well, but it's kind of hard to describe...

[labnjab]

I don't think keeping the clown from it would cause it to start to die. What are your tank parameters and calcium lvls and how is it set up (ie. powerheads, skimmer, live rock, lighting) How long has it been running, and how often do you feed the anemones?

[Camona2333]

Well I feed them once a week (I tear up just a normal frozen shrimp into small pieces and give them one or two), but I don't know if I've been feeding them enough because when the divider in the tank (the fish are kept on one side with a divider) was removed right after I had fed my fish, they did try to bring some of their food (brine shrimp) to the anemone, probably indicating that it was hungry. When that happened though, I didn't try to feed the anemone because it had already started to look like this and I didn't want to mess with it in case I made things worse.

The only parameters I have problems with are phosphate (because there's 5 ppm phosphate in the water used for changes - we don't have a reverse osmosis filter) and recently a very small (less than .25 ppm) nitrite increase (the test reads between 0 and .25 ppm). I just use the standard API test kits (saltwater and reef) to test the water.

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

That nitrite increase is probably due to the dying anemone. That phosphate level is likely the cause of your problems. I would bet you will see other problems with any other anemones in that tank eventually as a result.

[Camona2333]

Yup. It died. Found it floating on top of my tank this morning. Well, most of it. Some got stuck in the mesh of the divider, which means I have to clean that out today. :'(
I'm pretty sure the other small anemone in that side of the tank is dead too. It was barely clinging on to the gravel and it is now sitting, well, floating in a beaker until I can make sure it's totally dead. The third anemone on that side is looking perfectly healthy though, as are the three that are hosting clownfish.

So dying animals cause nitrites to increase? That's interesting. Thanks! I never knew that.

So you're saying that the phosphates could be killing my anemones? The level is about 3 ppm. Is that really high enough to hurt my anemones that much?

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

0.25ppm is too high for phosphates in a reef tank. Nothing will foul your water faster then dead anemones. You should probably do a rather large water change today if possible.

[kaybee]

...So you're saying that the phosphates could be killing my anemones? The level is about 3 ppm. Is that really high enough to hurt my anemones that much?

I'm not sure about anemone's but in reef tanks one should strive to keep phosphate levels below 0.03ppm. 3ppm is 100x that level.