My anemone finally died!

[Euphyllia]

You know that RBTA that I had been talking about that is having problems? Well it died...
All the other anemones are fine so I'm not sure what happened to this one. All my parameters were fine a couple of days ago but I'll go ahead and check again. I have the skimmer running. Should I do a water change? When I woke up this morning it was covered in mucus with the oral disc facing down. I finally got it out of the tank despite my squeamishness. The foot was fine but the oral disc was melting and the tentacles were black. What could have caused this? This wasn't a sudden death because it had been shriveling up and pooping lots every day for about a month and a half now... What could have happened?

 

[Gomer]

not sure what happened but sorry he died. Just a little tip: You have a tendency to make a bunch of new threads for updates. It will be easier on you and others to help if you just update the parent thread and keep the info together

 

[bookfish]

If nems aren't happy they don't digest well. If they keep getting fed when not happy they end up with food rotting in their gut.

 

[Euphyllia]

I think it was digesting the food. It always pooped out brown mucus stuff...

 

[bookfish]

Well, I wasn't there and have no need or ability to dispute your contention so I apologize for my useless advice. Sorry.

 

[Euphyllia]

Your advice wasn't useless. How do I know it the food is rotting inside of it?

 

[A_Lee]

Was this the bigger of the anemones? I forgot.

 

[Euphyllia]

It was the 9"

 

[GreshamH]

I think it was digesting the food. It always pooped out brown mucus stuff...

That sounds more like the expelling of zooxanthellae then pooping digested food. You should listen to Bookfish rather then counter what he has to say. I'm leaning the same way he is on this. It explains why the foot was fien but the rest was decayed.

 

[Euphyllia]

OK. Then how do I prevent this problem? Do I feed only once a week instead of twice a week?

 

[Gomer]

If nems aren't happy they don't digest well. If they keep getting fed when not happy they end up with food rotting in their gut.

OK. Then how do I prevent this problem? Do I feed only once a week instead of twice a week?

make them happy first, then feed (find the root cause of their unhappiness) .

 

[tuberider]

Feed them smaller items, most nems don't eat real large items in the wild, they eat smaller items with the occasional larger meaty item.

 

[bookfish]

If nems aren't happy they don't digest well. If they keep getting fed when not happy they end up with food rotting in their gut.

OK. Then how do I prevent this problem? Do I feed only once a week instead of twice a week?

make them happy first, then feed (find the root cause of their unhappiness) .

Thank you, that really was the whole point of my post.