Coralkin honest saltwater & reef care

🩺 Emergency Vet-Prep

Long-Tentacle Anemone Emergency Vet-Prep

Marine vets are rare and it's easy to freeze in a crisis. This is the one page to have ready — how to find a vet, what to bring, what to tell them, and the questions to ask. Print it, keep it with your care notes.

Black & white saves ink and prints cleanly on any printer.

Not sure it's serious yet? Run the symptom checker or the water-test checker first — many worries turn out to be a husbandry fix.

Coralkin honest saltwater & reef care · coralkin.com
Long-Tentacle Anemone — Vet-Prep

🔍 Find an aquatic vet

  • Search the WAVMA (World Aquatic Veterinary Medical Association) directory — or search "aquatic / exotics vet near me".
  • Call ahead: "Do you treat marine fish?" Few vets do — find and save one now, while things are calm.
  • Ask the exam fee when you call — knowing the cost up front removes the money-panic in a crisis.

📇 Fill this in now

My vet
My long-tentacle anemone
What I'm seeing

🚨 Is this an emergency now?

Quarantine and get help promptly if you notice any of these:

  • Deflated, or mouth gaping and staying open — a stressed or declining anemone; test water and be ready to remove it before it fouls the tank.
  • Constant wandering that never settles — usually light, flow or unstable water; a roaming anemone is also at risk in pumps.
  • Shrinking, fading or turning pale/translucent (bleaching) — a light, feeding or stability problem.
  • Detaching and tumbling in the flow — check it hasn't drifted toward a powerhead, and stabilise conditions.

🚗 On the way / while you wait

✅ Do

  • Test your water NOW — salinity, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, alkalinity and temperature — and correct anything obviously off.
  • Move the fish to a hospital / quarantine tank if you have one.
  • Keep it in its own stable tank water.
  • Keep the tank calm and dim.

⛔ Don't

  • Don't dose the display tank with OTC or shop “cures” blindly — copper and many meds are harmful to inverts and corals, and they mask the real cause.
  • Don't make a big, sudden parameter swing.
  • Don't add anything you can't explain the reason for.

🎒 What to bring

  • A recent, full water test — salinity, alkalinity, nitrate, temperature (and ammonia/nitrite/pH if you have them).
  • Photos plus a short video of what you’re seeing — it may not show it in the clinic.
  • A note of your system and how you feed.
  • Only if advised: the animal itself, in its own tank water.

🗣️ What to tell the vet / expert

Adult size
Commonly a 4–6 in oral disc, but the full tentacle spread can reach 12–20 in — plan for the spread, not the disc.
Lifespan
Host anemones are extremely long-lived (potentially decades); a firm captive figure isn't well documented, so success is measured in years of stability, not a set number.
Minimum tank
~30 gallons and up, and only a mature, established tank — plus a deep 3–5 in soft sand bed for it to anchor its foot.
Lighting
Moderate-to-high reef light — roughly PAR 200–300.
Water flow
Low-to-moderate, indirect flow — it dislikes a direct powerhead stream.
Placement
A SAND-dweller: it buries its pedal foot in a deep (3–5 in) soft sand bed, usually gripping buried rock beneath. Avoid crushed coral, which can cut its foot. This is the key difference from a rock-anchoring bubble-tip.
Temperature
~76–82°F (24–28°C) — sources split between the low-70s and low-80s, so keep it stable within that band.
pH
8.1–8.4.
Specific gravity
1.023–1.025 (~35 ppt).
Other targets
dKH ~8–12; like all inverts, zero tolerance for copper.
Feeding
Photosynthetic (via zooxanthellae) PLUS small meaty foods — mysis, chopped fish, shrimp or mussel — roughly 1–3× a week. Don't overfeed.
Temperament
A moderate stinger — it can sting corals within reach and catch small, slow fish. Give it a buffer zone.
Reef-safe
With caution — it stings corals it touches and can wander; site it with space from corals and screen your pumps.
Natural range
Indo-Pacific / Western Pacific.

⚕️ Most marine illness starts with water quality or acclimation, not infection — bring a full set of parameters (salinity, alkalinity, nitrate, temperature). Marine-fish medicine is specialised and few vets treat fish, so call ahead. Copper and many OTC 'cures' are toxic to invertebrates and corals — never dose them in a reef display; treat a sick fish in a separate quarantine/hospital tank, and tell the vet exactly what you've already added.

❓ Questions to ask

  • Do you treat marine fish?
  • What are the likely causes — and could my water or acclimation be the cause?
  • What is the treatment plan, the likely cost, and what should I watch for?
  • How do I prevent this happening again?