H Magnifica Help!!!

a&cbowman · #1 07/03/2007, 12:20 AM

So here is the story: My wife bought this anemone because it was "pretty" Which it was. She acclimated it and placed it in the tank. It went to the back and then got sucked into a powerhead. I got home and noticed the tank was kind of cloudy and right away knew what had happened. i tooke her out and let her pull herself out of the powerhead, she looked really bad but recovered. The only thing is that she lost half her size during the healing process and also some of her color. She wouldnt eat for about 2 weeks and i finally got her two eat some krill. I have been feeding her every two to three days and have noticed that she is starting to grow again. My problem is is that she has lost about 40 percent of her color in her butt. The tentacles still look the same color but her butt is not the vibrant purple that it used to be. I figured since it has started to grow that it is somewhat healthy. All of my tank paramaters are good, and i have good random flow in there and she sits about 8 - 10 inches underneath a 10k 150w Mh. Any help or ideas that i should do to get her to get some color back and to get her healthy again would be great, thanx
Chris

plancton · #2 07/03/2007, 02:12 PM

Hi, I don't know if it will recover its color, however I want you to please try the following diet:

Get good brand of flake food and soak it in water, add cycloop eeze if you have, until the whole mixture becomes liquid.

Then get a syringe without the needle of course and shoot the liquid food into its mouth, it is suppose to be extremely good for its development.

chrisstie · #3 07/03/2007, 03:43 PM

How can you recommend that course of action when the thread right above this one is you asking if it even works?
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...readid=1155137

I don't have much personal experience keeping anemones but the ones I've taken care of usually eat silver sides and they get soaked in a garlic\zoe marine mixture that the other fish food I feed gets mixed in.

I'm not sure if it is also beneificial to anemones the way it is to fish but you could try a solution like that even with some marine c type products (some vitamins and amino acids according to the companies who sell them are good for coloration)

Like I said I don't have much personal experience with this but the healthy anemones I've looked after take this and do very well with it.

I suppose if a silverside is too big you could chop it up or try krill or squid or even scallops are a really great way to get something to start eating. Not much can resist a tasty scallop

OrionN · #4 07/03/2007, 09:38 PM

Even without picture, I think you got a BTA, not a H. magnifica. H. magnifica would not survive that encounter, and all of your fish would be dead if something like that happened.

JamesJR · #5 07/04/2007, 02:44 PM

I second OrionN's opinion. H. magnifia's are very hard to keep even for anyone and would probably not have survived an encounter like that. Anyways, I would try and secure any powerheads or anything like that could suck it up, Run lots of carbon to keep the water as clean as possible. I have also found that anemones in poor shape may actually have a harder time adjusting if there are clowns swimming in it because it can be trickier to feed them without the fish dislodging the food from the tentacles. Hope this helps man.

OrionN · #6 07/04/2007, 09:59 PM

I mean to say that if something like this happened with H. magnifica, fish in the tank would be dead, but the fish will not have problem if your BTA (E. quadricolor) got chew up by an PH. This have being well documented (tank wipe out with a traumatized H. magnifica)

Rod Buehler · #7 07/05/2007, 06:30 AM

I cant help much with the original question (Re: color) but I will say that I have seen an H. mag get caught in a Seio powerhead. The anemone is a bit chopped up but doing very well, and all fish are fine. I feel very lucky after reading about tank wipe-outs from H.mags.

a&cbowman · #8 07/06/2007, 10:06 PM

Some of my fish did die actually. It has been a while since that happened. She is totally healed but has lost a lot of color in her base, and yes she is an h magnifica i have compared her to many different pictures and people have visited and said that they knew it was a magnifica.

JJFly · #9 07/07/2007, 01:49 AM

H. Magnifica like blue spectrum. 20k or even better Iwasaki 50k bulb. It will color back up in 3-4 months under the bluer spectrum. Actinic supplement even with that blue a MH bulb is still recommended. and yes, H Magnifica do like smaller foods, not silversides or big krill. Mysis, cyclopeze, etc... Normally, if you feed your clown to saturation, they will bring the extra to the anemone. H. Magnifica will eat as much as 2-3times a day with small foods as mentioned... Soaking in a vitamin suppliment like Selcon

Hope this helps.

OrionN · #10 07/07/2007, 09:30 AM

H. magnifica live on top of the reef and should do well with normal spectrum, not blue (Sun light is 5500K) The spectrum shifted to bluer as the dept get deeper deeper. My Magnifica did very well right under a 6500K MH.
My Magnifical always got fed with large chunks of shrimp, fish, scallops and what ever food I feed them. Size of fish chunk is about 1X.5X.5 inches or whole shrimp (shell head and all) size of my small finger, is typical. They also eat smaller food that I feed th fish too but certainly got the most of their calories form large chunks of food. I don't rely on my clowns to feed my anemones (any of my anemones) I used a syringe and needle and injected some Selcon and baby liquid vitamin (for my sons but it taste so horrible that my sons will not take it even if I squirt it into their mouth) into the shrimp or fish sometime. Many people report that they soak food in Selcon before feeding them to their animals. I think that for the animal that take large chunk of food, injecting it into the food is a much better option IMO. I don't know if this is need, but my H. magnifica did great for many years.

Feed your anemone well, keep the water in great condition, lots of water movement and very bright light for H. magnifica. If the anemone doing well, he will recover his color. Any picture?

DarkStar76 · #11 07/08/2007, 11:03 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by OrionN
Even without picture, I think you got a BTA, not a H. magnifica. H. magnifica would not survive that encounter, and all of your fish would be dead if something like that happened.

I disagree. I have a giant H. magnifica and the first time it climbed the wall it hit the Seio and lost quite a bit of flesh, including almost 30% of its tenticles. I lost 2 fish... mostly because they got scared and darted into the anemone. The anemone recovered and is extremely healthy today... so are the fish. Didn't lose a single coral.

I would suggest you continue to feed it, and give it good light and good water flow. Give it time, and it'll probably return to its previous state.

Here's a picture of mine, several months after the mishap. You'd never know it happened... After the incident, I fed it mostly table shrimp (from the grocery store), I am now feeding it mostly silversides. In all honesty, it seemed to like the shrimp better.

a&cbowman · #12 07/08/2007, 12:01 PM

Thanx for the info everybody. There seems to be mixed info on what i should do. Right now i have 10k light on it. Before i had 14k and it moved around a lot it seemed trying to find better lighting, when i put the 10k light on it has stayed put ever since. I tried feeding it silversides and it didnt like it. It doesnt like larger pieces of food either, so i have to give it half sizes of krill. What is funny is that it is growing, but not getting its color back, very strange to me as bta's will color right up after about a month of healthy feeding, and this one has not. Well i guess its just a waiting game then.... hopefully i can get it back to its original color.

OrionN · #13 07/08/2007, 12:06 PM

Here is mine with breeding A. ocellaris

z_rivers · #14 07/08/2007, 04:44 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by plancton
Hi, I don't know if it will recover its color, however I want you to please try the following diet:

Get good brand of flake food and soak it in water, add cycloop eeze if you have, until the whole mixture becomes liquid.

Then get a syringe without the needle of course and shoot the liquid food into its mouth, it is suppose to be extremely good for its development.

Never try to force anything into an H. Mags mouth, especially a syringe. Liquid foods really won't do anything for this anemone, they need whole meaty foods.

I've had my mag for close to 2.5 years now. About a year ago i had a heater break and leak current into my aquarium. My mag bleached pretty bad to almost white. It took almost 7 months for it to recover in color and mass. During its recovery period, i fed it small 1/2 cm X 1/2 cm pieces of shrimp and silverside. As time progressed i gradually started to feed it larger pieces.

Patience with this anemone is key, as its reputation follows it closely. HTH.

Good luck on getting it back to health.