First Tragedy - Need Advice

[dolfans1]

I've had my first SW tragedy. Last Saturday I decided to go ahead and get a green bubble tip anenome - about 6" across when fully extended. It seemed to aclimate to my tank pretty quickly, settling in a crevice on the back side of my live rock. It stayed there most of the week, and looked pretty healthy. Yesterday morning I noticed it starting to move around - it was on the front side of the LR. When I went to bed last night it had moved to the back glass in the corner with the overflow return. It still looked very healthy, so I wan't too concerned. This morning when I got up, what was left of it was wrapped around the protective screen of one of my powerhead intakes. It looked like it had moved onto the powerhead, and then the powerhead proceeded to tear its tentacles up and spew the bits across the LR and sand. Needless to say, the BTA is no more.

Aside from being extremely disappointed, my concern now is the effect this will have on the other tank inhabitants. The water has a slight haze to it, so I have started doing water changes, but this will take awhile for a 120g tank. Will my cleaner crew of snails and hermit crabs be able to take care of the bits of tentacles on the sand and rock, or will these be toxic? Aside from a possible ammonia spike that I am trying to avoid with the water changes, is there anything else that may be toxic to fish and invertebrates that comes from a shredded anenome? Is there anything else I need to do to protect them besides the water changes?

 

[DansMarineTank]

sorry about your loss! i would try and get as much of the anemone remains up as possible
to avoid polution

 

[FloridaBoy]

Ouch, have your water checked for ammonia... keep making daily water changes as needed, if you don't have a good quality skimmer now would be an excellent time to add one.

 

[dolfans1]

I've got a good skimmer - Euroreef. I did clean the cup since I'm expecting a lot of organic waste in the next day or so. So far I've done a 15% water change, and I'll try for another 15% tomorrow. It looks like the cleaning crew as cleaned up most of the debris - they evidently didn't have a problem with tentacle remains.

I am also starting to work on replumbing my system. I have a Blue-Line 70 pump in storage that I'm going to hook up after I've worked on a sound dampening-system for it, so I can get rid of the powerheads and max-drive pumps. This will solve the problem of critters getting sucked into the powerhead intake. Oh well - live and learn.

 

[Swimfins]

So sorry about the bubble tip.
Bubble tip anenome are notorious for wandering. I've had success (3 weeks today) with a small long tentacle anenome. It wandered a couple nights, but soon found a niche in the sand between 2 rocks. I blocked the back of the tank with rock where the powerheads are (easy to do in my 30g tank) I'd suggest macrodactyla doreensis, many clownfish will host in it. Bubble tip is a natural host for tomato clownfish, a. frenatus, but my tomato has taken to the lta just fine.