Anemone breeding - experiences in propagating

[guserto4]

Does anyone have any experiences in anemone breeding / propagation? Seems these days it's all about sps and lps fragging, but does anyone have any information or resources about setup, procedures, does and don'ts, etc. for anemone farming?

I like the idea of a tank devoted to growing out and propagating anemone.

Thanks!

 

[cnreef]

Bulkreefsupply made a video about propagating, although I hear hobbyists tend to have a harder time doing this than the video suggests. I have no personal experience with it though...

http://youtu.be/nwb92qDQABs

 

[D-Nak]

This can only be done with repeated success with BTAs. No other anemone is hardy enough to endure forced propagation. The only anemone that comes even remotely close is H. magnifica (Ritteri) but many people who have tried have failed miserably. It's happened on its own many times in captivity (I have clones).

Regarding BTAs, it's been reported that some are colonial and reproduce by splitting, while others are solitary and reproduce sexually. You'll need to determine which you have in order to propagate with repeated success. I believe that green BTAs and some rose BTAs are colonial. Some of the rare morphs such as a Lemondrop or Sunburst are far less common because they are a lot harder to propagate.

Sexual reproduction has occurred on rare occasions in captivity (large, public aquariums) but no one has even been able to induce reproduction.

 

[guserto4]

I assumed this would be a BTA thing as nothing else to my knowledge, or apparently anyone else's, can be coaxed into reproducing/splitting. Any suggestions on keeping a bunch of them? This stemmed from wanting to setup a tank consisting of a clown brood from one clutch, then thinking about territory and many anemones then thinking about propagating. The BRS videos rekindled these thoughts.

I guess I'm wondering about best practices for beyond having one or two to more like if I have 20-30 or them.

 

[BayouCorals]

Rock anemones will spawn and have babies. There is no real formula to guarantee success. I started with 5 and they have spawned twice in 18 months. I think increased feeding and raising the water temperature triggered the spawning. About 40 babies each time that I could count. The little ones grow slow and tend to disappear. I think they release and end up in the sump and pumps. I still have about 40 little ones. BTAs are much easier and you can cut them if they take too long to split. If I were going to set up an anemone propagation system I would go with BTAs.

 

[guserto4]

Rock flowers are pretty beautiful- do they always reproduce sexually? I'm really not familiar with them, but that could be an interesting route to take, as would ritteri. I'm leaning towards a system(s) where I get the beauty of a species tank scene (or several) and can offset the costs by occasionally offloading excess numbers. Not fully professional propagation, but not fully personal tanks either.

I'm not a marine biologist, but I am always looking for a challenge it would be kind of neat to take a look at a particular species or two that have some but not consistent success and see what I could add, even if only anecdotally, to the collective understanding.

 

[geckoejon]

first, i will say that o do not have any experience with cutting nems. i do have a bta tank though, and have numerous splits. a couple of things come to mind...

wait until about 6 months to add the nems. i didn't. lol i added as soon as they cycled, and the swings made the bta's look like bung for several months. most of the bta's not look just as good as when i got them though

having a bunch of bta's in a single tank and trying to separate to get them out can be a pain. multiple bta's on a single rock, a single bta's holding onto multiple rocks, and ect... i have a friend that has a bunch of bta's in a well established system. it took several months to finally get a clone out because of the reasons mentioned above. i would advise going with smaller fist size rocks that are very porous. ime, that makes it substantially easier in removing them.

bta's will often change colors in different tanks. i've seen it happen repeatedly. some will also thrive in a certain tank and not do so well in another. i've also also seen no name bta's at the lfs look as good as some of the named high dollar ones.

don't fry them with light. i read numerous places that bta's need "high light", and had my photons starting out at 70-80%. the bta's all shrank up, and started to faded. i dropped the lights way down, and ramped them up 5% a week. they have gotten most of the color back, and stay stretched and bubbled for the most part.

finally, don't try to overfeed. just feed small pieces. ime, feeding large pieces of food is a waste, because they spit it back out.

just my 2 cents....

 

[LooseHip]

I have had success propagating sunburst anemones for a while now. I have cut several and have also let them split on their own. Things I find to make this successful are feedings 3 times a week and weekly water changes.

Here are some pics. All the splits/clones are from the same "mother" anemone. Definitely interesting to see how the colors vary so much.

 

[garygb]

Yes Guserto, flower anemones (Epicystis crucifer) only reproduce sexually and are not candidates for fragging. I started with 5 or 6 and now have about 35 of various sizes. It's taken 6 or 7 years to get that number.

 

[enchelycore808]

I would say easy ones are maxis and BTAs. Rocks can't be force propagated. Maxis are pretty hardy IMO. Had a couple arrive to me as doughnuts ( big hole straight down the middle) and the healed fine in a couple weeks!

 

[mcfa2403]

Personally, I feel a relatively large and shallow system would be best for this undertaking. Bubbles, while not necessarily a high lighting nem, thrive best under slightly higher but less fractured light in my experience and tend to show more colors this way. A 6' x 4' x 12-16" tank would be a good place to start and would use 6 Kessils (full spectrum and LED's bring out more colors)

BTA's seem to respond best to a pulsing motion by a wavemaker from what I have seen and while they may not like high flow mine seem to prefer to have their oral disk in stretched into the flow (blows the waste out more quickly and in a cut tank this would help nems recover).

I would also consider using pvc elbows and no rock work in the system. If the foot was in the elbow (with a removable cap on one end) it would be out of the flow and shaded as they prefer. However, with it in an elbow you could remove the cap and use a small power head, from what was the capped end, to cause the nem to release without damage. I would not use liverock in the nem tank (obviously it would be fine in the sump) as it is much more dangerous to remove them from rocks (and if you are fragging them you would need to do this often).

The system would need a massive skimmer so that any gunk released by fresh cut nems was neutralized and you might consider actually having a separate recovery system which consisted of a somewhat more dim light and a skimmer.

As for getting nems for propagating I probably would not purchase name brand nems simply because true name brand nems are by definition already propagated by someone. A lot of times these have more colors simply because someone gave them the time to really color up. Personally, I would find a way to go to a wholesaler and hand pick a couple of times. You would be surprised how often petco gets nems that once colored up look nearly identical to these high dollar ones. They are often washed out before they get to the wholesaler too, my recommendation is to go to a hunting/sporting goods store and purchase an LED flashlight that has a blue LED setting (used for blood tracking), I have one made by Smith and Wesson that I like (think it came from Cabelas). With no light on the nem other than the blue flashlight you will be able to pick out a lot, if not all, of the true colors in the nem even when it is bleached. Doing this I have found nems nearly identical to acid rain and flame BTAs as well as others (remember they are only true flames if they are propagated from the original or a clone of the original). This will save you hundreds if not thousands allowing you to get a wider array of morphs as well as invest more into the system.

Anyways, this is just how I would do it but I have given it significant thought. I believe lighting and feeding are the keys to maximizing your frag rate as you will want them to grow as rapidly as possible since large nems are much more likely to survive cutting.

 

[etherX]

I have had success propagating sunburst anemones for a while now. I have cut several and have also let them split on their own. Things I find to make this successful are feedings 3 times a week and weekly water changes.

Here are some pics. All the splits/clones are from the same "mother" anemone. Definitely interesting to see how the colors vary so much.

These look great. Can you give us more info on what your tank/system looks like?

 

[aznflyfisherman]

I think the best way is to get btas that are already big n make sure its establish in your tank n then feed it a few times a week usually makes them split. Water changes also trigger splitting for me. I have about 15 btas in my 110g tank.