Condy Anemone

[firstdon]

Hi guys

Im afraid, Ive lost my condy anemone.

During some recent tank work and re-aquascaping my Condy Anemone has become unattached from his rock.

The last time I saw it , it was on the sandbed, retracted and annoyed.

I think I may have buried it by accident during my reaquascaping. If this is true, can anemones unbury themselves if buried under the sand? I checked under the rock work and he was nowhere to be found, so either he is in one of the rocks as they have many holes and crevices or he is in the sand buried. Should I go digging in the sand looking for it?

I dont know what to do. Is it dead? I asssumed that if it was dead somewhere that it would just deteriorate and I would see pieces of it floating around, but thats not the case, I dont notice a bad smell in the tank either.

Another possibility that I thought of but I thought would be unlikely is that it did die and my redlegged crabs or bristleworms ate it? Is that possible?

The tank has been up for 2 years now and all parameteres have been great. He seemed happy before I reaquascaped.

What do you guys think.

Thanks for all your responses

 

[TL1000RSquid]

How long ago did you last see it? If its been a few days and it is in fact burried under sand I'd think its dead and deteriorating already and digging it up would release alot of bad stuff. If it got annoyed it could certainly be hiding in some crevice on the back of the rockwork.

Your ammonia is at 0?

 

[firstdon]

Yes, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate all at zero. The last time Ive seen it was maybe 3 weeks ago

 

[TL1000RSquid]

That is a pretty long time, I'm not to familiar with condy's though, I have BTA's and I've had them disappear for several days before.

 

[Khemul]

A tank that age could quite possibly handle a dead anemone without showing any signs. It really depends on tank size and anemone size. From the sound of it this is either a large tank or a small Condy, since it is difficult to lose a large Condy in a small tank from a simple rescape. So I'd suspect your tank could take the death just fine.


I doubt a Condy would dig itself out of the sand. Maybe if it was just a thin layer that settled over top, but they aren't really designed for it like the sand-dwelling anemones.

 

[firstdon]

Well its a 26 gallon tank, and the Condy was pretty big when all its tentacles were displayed, about the size of my palm, but when it got pissed off it shrunk to the size of a nickel. My ammonia, nitrite and nitrates are still zero, I recently took out all my rocks and dug around in the sandbed but could not find it. This thing literally dissappeared lol