Bubble Tip Anemone

[demifelix]

Hi Gene, I think your anemones are looking great. I wouldn't mind having a tank like that. But the loss of other corals is something too. I have been trying to keep BTA, and I once had 2 in my 150 gal. For some reason (maybe I didn't manually feed them for a while), they shrank and the tentacles disappeared. It's been 3 months now, and one of them is getting the tentacles back (just like buddings now, not tentacles yet). Since you have them thrive in your tank, you must be the expert on this, so hopefully you can give me some tips on getting my BTA's back to normal. What do you think I must do? Thanks Gene.

[ghofmann]

Note to self: Continue bright lighting and letting the clown fish feed Lester. Do not, repeat, DO NOT feed multiple silversides per clone!

Too funny

[zhenya]

Hi Gene, I think your anemones are looking great. I wouldn't mind having a tank like that. But the loss of other corals is something too. I have been trying to keep BTA, and I once had 2 in my 150 gal. For some reason (maybe I didn't manually feed them for a while), they shrank and the tentacles disappeared. It's been 3 months now, and one of them is getting the tentacles back (just like buddings now, not tentacles yet). Since you have them thrive in your tank, you must be the expert on this, so hopefully you can give me some tips on getting my BTA's back to normal. What do you think I must do? Thanks Gene.

Hi demifelix,

First, thank you for complimenting my anemones.

Secondly, can you describe a bit more, especially the time frame, how your anemones shrunk. I'm by no means an expert on keeping anemones but I did have some success in keeping E.quad's and a single sebae(H.crispa) and if I can unswer any of your questions I'll do what I can to help you.
I would definately need little more information about your tank, as to salinity,temperature, what type of lighting you are using and if you test your water please post your latest results ( Alkalinity, Calcium and Nitrogen).

In general, I think what you saw with your anemones is a result of malnutrition, where animal was probably consuming it;s stored resourses untill they start to run out... It can probably survive without feeding( just on photosynthesis) if lighting is intense enough to accomplish this and providing that the animal is not bleached. If lighting is subpar then this could be quite problematic without supplimental feedings.

Also, now that your anemones don't have those tentacles, it is that much harder to feed. It could be done, of course, but will require patience and dilligence on your part. I would try first with small pieces of the silversides, placing them directly on the oral disk near the mouth and see if there is a response.

[demifelix]

I have 150 gal with 3 MH 175W 20K lighting, plus 4 55W true actinic PC bulbs. One anemone is in the upper 1/3, the other one is at the bottom 1/3. I once thought it's not enough lighting, so I changed to 250W, and it moved to the back of the rock (and the sides) and only came out at night. This happened for a week or so and I thought maybe 250W is a little too much, so I changed it back to 175W.

My nitrate, nitrite is 0, calcium around 450, temp 78-81, salinity 1.022-1.024, alkalinity around 350.

What kind of lighting do you have, and what are your water parameters? I have a 30 gal tank that would like to keep just BTA and a pair of clowns, but now I don't even know what to do. Any help from you is really appreciated. Thanks alot.

[zhenya]

I have 150 gal with 3 MH 175W 20K lighting, plus 4 55W true actinic PC bulbs. One anemone is in the upper 1/3, the other one is at the bottom 1/3. I once thought it's not enough lighting, so I changed to 250W, and it moved to the back of the rock (and the sides) and only came out at night. This happened for a week or so and I thought maybe 250W is a little too much, so I changed it back to 175W.

My nitrate, nitrite is 0, calcium around 450, temp 78-81, salinity 1.022-1.024, alkalinity around 350.

What kind of lighting do you have, and what are your water parameters? I have a 30 gal tank that would like to keep just BTA and a pair of clowns, but now I don't even know what to do. Any help from you is really appreciated. Thanks alot.

Well, I think you have enough lighting with three 175w MH bulbs, however, I think they could be kept easily under more intense lighting ( mine are kept under 250w bulbs and two 140w VHO's and I'm sure could use even more). I also think that when you switched to 250w bulbs your anemones were simply trying to adjust to the increase.
Your water parameters seem to be in order as well, except perhaps specific gravity. I think 1.022 is probably the lowest range for fish only aquariums, 1.025-1.026 would be much more inline with sp.gravity for the reef aquariums which house sensitive invertabrates. In fact, my 110g aquarium is at 1.027 and I'm not changing anything becouse those anemones are doing fine.

Let me ask you this, were your anemones tank raised or wild caught? It makes big difference in success rates, I think.

In regards to the 30g tank that you have, I think it should be just fine for a species tank/anemone tank, providing that you'll set it up just as you would any other reef tank.

As far as my anemone tank water parameters, they are as follows:

Specific Gravity - 1.027
Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate are undetectable by my test kits.
Ca - 375 ppm
Alkalinity - 2.8 meg/L.

I think your 30g tank could be lit by a single 175w MH bulb and with good filtration methods( read good skimmer and maybe fuge, some live rock) it could be a good home for a nice, tank raised clone. I personally think that tank raised/propagated animals are the way to go, keeps anemones back in the Ocean where they belong.

[demifelix]

Thanks Gene. I'll try to up my salinity over the next few days to match yours and see how it goes.
I purchased my on Ebay, and they are wild caught (that's what the seller said). I will probably look for a tank raised somewhere else. BTW, have you ever thought about selling one of yours? I would love to have one from your tanks if it's all possible instead of buying from unknown sellers again. Thanks for all your help.

[zhenya]

I purchased my on Ebay, and they are wild caught (that's what the seller said).

Yeah, that may be one of the reasons why yours didn't do too well. Wild caught, then transfered from tank to tank with different salinity levels,different salt mixes....you know what I mean? Most of the time the care is not taken to acclimate those animals properly and results are very poor in survival rates. At least in my opinion.

Anyways, if you were local to me I would gladly give you as many as you want/need, however, I really don't do well with shipping livestock. I don't know if you read any of my pther threads about this tank but in short, the resident clownfish is extremely mean and is quite large in size, with big teeth... I am very tired of nursing those "love" bites she gave me so I really don't want to deal with her again. Maybe one day I can enlist someone to help me out and then I can ship one to you.

[demifelix]

Sure Gene, keep me in mind, or maybe the next time I'll be up in that area I'll stop by.
BTW, I just moved one of the rocks and found a small anemone, which is a split-off from one of my 2 other anemones. I thought it died a long time ago since I shrank and disappeared a long time ago, but it was hiding in the back of a rock all these times. Its tentacles are actually growing back out again.....what a surprise. Do you think it was getting too much light that makes it hidden all these times, or any other reasons why it was hiding?

[Wisebonzai]

Steve,

What kind of lighting are you using and what kind of food do you feed these? I love your anemone'.

I have several anemone. I have a BTA, 2 unknown anemone (I suspect they are BTA, but not sure because they are so brown it's hard to tell) and I have 2 condys and 2 curlycues.

Maybe you can tell me if they are BTAs?

Thanks in advance.

Renee

Free Image Uploading :: ImagePoster.com and Free Image Uploading :: ImagePoster.com

[zhenya]

Wisebonzai,




None of the pictured anemones is E.quadricolor, as far as I could tell. However, it would be much easier to tell if you could show your anemone's foot/column. E-quads are the only host anemones I know that do not have bumps(verrucae) on it's foot. Plus, I think yours have colored tiped tentacles which BTA'a also do not posess.

Probables would be H.crispa if I had to guess.

PS> I stand corrected on the colored tips, BTA's do have them quite often.(Thank you, Ninong) I just never seen one myself around where I live. It;s either green all around or the rose variety.

[Ninong]

Wisebonzai,

The anemones pictured in the two photos you linked do appear to be BTAs to me. It is difficult to tell from photographs, especially if the tentacles do not have obvious bulbous tips. However, as zhenya has already pointed out, one defining characteristic that will definitely nail down the identification is the lack of any verrucae on the column. Entacmaea quadricolor anemones do not have any verrucae, the other nine clownfish-hosting sea anemones all have verrucae.

[Wisebonzai]

The anemone do not have any verracuae, or small warts of any type. They have the same stock as my other BTA does, however they don't have bubbles. I did end up writing Wet Web Media and they identified them as BTAs, although one will not come out of his/her cave yet. I am still awaiting that day, as it's the prettiest of the 2. They are enjoying their aquarium, and the one who is out has eaten and I slip something in at the one in the rock every few days. It's almost been a week here now, so I think I need to look around and figure why the one isn't coming out. Got a new backpack skimmer and one more for the sump. I thank you all for the input.