Anemone Out of Control

[preef]

My BTA is growing and growing and growing. It's now taking up about 1/4th of my live rock area. It seems like every week I'm moving corals that are in danger of getting irritated by it. I came home today to find a good chunk of a stylo RTN'd because the BTA was touching it. I never feed it although my clown occasionally does. The picture below is about a week old. It's bigger now and I've rearranged corals twice since then.

How much bigger is this guy going to get?

Do any corals have a more powerful sting than a BTA that I can use to keep it in its place? What about frogspawn? Maybe I can set up a perimeter of frogspawn heads to contain it. :lmao:

In the past when it got big it would split. So far it refuses to split this time. I really like having an anemone. It's been well behaved and stays put and I love watching my clown host it.

Any recommendations?

 

[NYCBOB]

thats the downside of keeping most anemones in a reef tank. there isnt much u can do except to either remove the anemone or move corals near it to another spot. the anemone can grow even bigger. i had a bta in the past with the same issue and i had to remove it bc it got too big.

 

[Reef Bass]

And just to be clear, the anemone hosts the clown, not the other way around.

 

[epicenter]

They are killers in a reef tank. My friend has one with a 20" dia. in a 210. The thing is huge so is yours. sps or bta, not a hard decision IMO.

 

[John Blaze]

I read somewhere that doing a large water change using a diffrent (not your usual) salt would cause nems to split. I don't know if it's true, might be worth a shot?

 

[m_wonnacott]

um is it just me or does that not look like a long tentacle anem?

 

[tkeracer619]

This started as one

 

[preef]

um is it just me or does that not look like a long tentacle anem?

It's a BTA. It lost the bubbles when it got big.

Used to look like this.

 

[preef]

This started as one

Nice tank!

 

[tkeracer619]

Thanks

Your going to need a bigger tank if you want that stuff to have room to grow. It looks good but is getting cramped. You have some nice corals, I would maybe start removing ones on the bottom of your list to free up space for the ones you really like.

 

[preef]

Thanks

Your going to need a bigger tank if you want that stuff to have room to grow. It looks good but is getting cramped. You have some nice corals, I would maybe start removing ones on the bottom of your list to free up space for the ones you really like.

I can't help it. Every time I visit my LFS I walk out with a couple of frags.

My name is Paul and I'm a reefaholic.

 

[aleonn]

Wow that guy is a monster. Unless you want to sell it off entirely, I'd try to somehow induce a split (so you can sell the other half). I also heard stress or water changes can do this, but have no experience with my BTA spliting.

 

[bimmer88]

wow... huge... nice lookin anemone... maybe try pointing a powerhead at it to get it to split... but that might make it move towards other corals...

 

[strike2867]

I had a Carpet Anemone that was taking up most of my tank. Gave it back to the store for credit. Little guy(18" in diameter) ended up going to a 20,000 gallon tank. Gave it back to Sho Tank, you probably heard of it. Also I don't live too far if you want to do a Frag Swap.

 

[Amoore311]

They can get absolutely massive. Atlantis Marine World in Riverhead, NY has a bunch of them that are bigger than basketballs.


Most people either feed the anemone a lot, or do a very large water change. This creates a little more stress to the system than usual, and they anemone will sometimes respond by splitting.

As with most things in the hobby.... your mileage may vary.

 

[RVANANO]

I am starting to worry about my RBTA as well. it looks like it wants to split but it's foot is way back in a cave on my largest rock (30 lbs) Not sure what I am going to do either but I think I may have to get rid of it since I have a lot of coral. My clowns will hate me for it and I have had them since I got back into the hobby about 3 years ago.

 

[greggnyce]

Hi Paul

 

[Pallobi]

I read somewhere that doing a large water change using a diffrent (not your usual) salt would cause nems to split. I don't know if it's true, might be worth a shot?

i dont believe this is true... but i could be way wrong... GL with whatever you decied

 

[preef]

Well I came home from work today to find the stylo irritated by my BTA deep into RTN. Awesome. Yesterday one branch was white so I cut it off when I relocated it. Today only the tips are left. Fragged what I could. It's one of the few corals that survived my crash in the spring. This hobby can be so frustrating.

 

[414driver]

I read somewhere that doing a large water change using a diffrent (not your usual) salt would cause nems to split. I don't know if it's true, might be worth a shot?

I'm beginning to think there is truth in that......I started my tank on Kent....then got a promotional 25 gal bucket of DD.....they split once shortly after. Then I swapped to Aquavitro Salinity.....the mother split again within 2 weeks. This was in my 30 gal cube....with 10 gallon water changes monthly.

Sorta the same story in my 90 gal....after the change to Aquavitro one RBTA split....the other one hasn't but has doubled in size in 2 months....3" fully open to 6". However...these nems are obviously 2 different varieties.