Bubble tip anemone changing feature

[JUNRL]

About 6 mos. ago, I bought a bubble tip anemone (1st picture). 2 mons. later, it started to loose its bubble tip characteristic and begun to look like an LT anemone (2nd picture). Lighting for my 75gal are just 3 36W 10000K Coralife lamps and 2 36W Philips actinic 03. I know this is a far cry for an ideal reef lighting but I have to settle with this due to the heat issue from halides, besides the electric bill.

Question is, will it look like this for the rest of its life and why did it change. My guess is the lack of light but then again you know better.

And, could you ID the coral in the 3rd picture. I forgot what the LFS told me.

Appreciate your response.

[zhenya]

Hi JUNRL,

Well, what you have seen with your anemone is exclusevely aquarium phenomena and never been observed in nature. So, I wouldn't overly worry much about it as lons as it is healthy and eating. Yours look very nice and appears darn healthy to me.
But, in regards to bubble tips, there are many things to consider, besides the lighting. Currents, water chemistry, etc. etc. I'll dig up for you an article about this, but you can run a search using key words like buble tip anemone and I am sure you'll find it yourself.
Basically it discusses effects of different lighting on anemone and those bulbous tip production.However, I have roughly 16 Entacmaea quadricolor in my anemone tank, all are the same animal becouse they are clones from a single anemone, and only one showing some bubble tips. It is settled itself in a quieter( water movement wise) area of the tank but recieving the same metal halide lighting as the rest of the clones.So, this makes me think that maybe water flow has something to do with this as well.

The coral that you are trying to identify is most likely a Turbinaria peltata. Most other species of Turbinaria usually show polyp extention at night time, except for the T.peltata, plus, it has the largest polyps in the family...

[JUNRL]

You're probably right, it does look healthy since it takes in everything I give it, from shrimps to fish pellets. And thank you for the ID. I did some browsing on the name and it's the correct specie.
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