Condy death - ugh!

[naclh20]

Does anyone have experience with condylactis, or other anenome's, that explains why it would have expelled its stomach and started falling apart over night? I had a very healthy looking condy for about 3 weeks (given to me as a surprise - ugh!), and it grew during that time. It looked really 'happy', stretched out and moving its tentacles around the night before. I woke up and found it all shrivelled, with a big piece of what looked like its stomach floating near it's mouth and stuck to its 'urp.' I am so bummed! I didn't request or buy this creature, but it really seemed to be doing great in my tank. Its two days since the morning I found it and I have it in a 'sick tank,' but its still falling apart. Half of it is just dried up guts, the other half just hanging on. I guess it will come apart completely in another day. Is this the common fate of condylactis? Did I overfeed it? Thanks for any thoughts -but please be gentle, i'm in a truly guilty phase about now :-(

Thanks folks.

[Agu]

Condys can expel most of the fluid that inflates them and look like they're one step from deaths door, only to look just fine the next day. Also, are you sure the stuff coming out wasn't waste (poop)? If you've been feeding heavily it eventually has to expel waste.

Another possibility is that you have a shrimp or crab that's pulling food out of the condys mouth and doing damage in the process.

How does it look now? Does it appear to be recovering?

Agu

[naclh20]

Thanks for your idea about the crab - I would believe that explanation.
http://photos.yahoo.com/snarfle2k
this site has my reef album, with the healthy condy pics in the front and the last 3 pics of the dying condy.
It was just fine friday night, all extended and swaying about. I fed it a small piece of seafood, a skin of squid I think, and it ate quickly. I did feed it alot, almost every other day and it ate voraciously, as did the rock anenome next to it.
On saturday morning it had a long thread of reddish 'urp' attached to its mouth and was quite gray and deflated. The urp had big chunks of what looked like Condy guts in it. Quite gross.

I removed the condy easily, and it was in one piece when I took it out of the tank. I put it in a 3 gallon tank with airstone and heater, rocks and bio-sand. It has received twice daily 3qt water changes and has two flourescent 20w lights right on top of it. It climbed from the bottom to the top side of the little tank, then started falling apart. Now its 3/4 green-guts hanging off its foot, and 1/4 original orange foot. It looked better this morning, all puffed up and swollen around the guts - but tonight its much worse - more guts than original foot and the whole thing is drooping. It would sure be great to save this creature, and even better to learn why it died so quickly. Do anenomes get sick from certain seafoods? If a crab did go after the food in its gut, wouldn't it have ripped up the anenome in the process? I have lots of little 'gorrilla crabs' that are very strong and fearless, I wouldn't doubt that one would fight its way into and out of an anenome. Do you know if crabs are protected from the a's sting?
Thanks again.