Anemone splitting/budding

[museumguy]

I observed something in one of my tanks recently that I think is pretty cool and was wondering if any of you have seen anything like this happen before.

I had two white/green bulb tip anemones in my tank (among others). Recently they found each other in the tank which that alone is so cool, but then they wrapped up in a ball, one over the other. I assumed they were mating but couldn't find much info on it. Well I think they fused into one anemone... then about a week later I found tiny tiny anemones all over my tank. All told I think I have about 8 babies ranging in size now from a dime upto a half dollar in size. Then a few days ago the one anemone split back into two. Pretty cool thing, though I still am trying to figure out exactly what happened, hehe.

Anyone else ever see this?

 

[dalilgriffith]

www.anemoneporn.com/viewcam.html

Yeah i have

</sarcasm>

Do you have a picture of thes anemones b/c I have these red zoas with long tentacles call majano.... They are great. SPREAD LIKE CRAZY!

 

[Anemone]

Two separate anemones wouldn't "fuse together." Sorry.

There is no information on contact spawning among BTAs - they are known to be broadcast spawners, with indications that sometimes females brood planulae after male spawning, but nothing about any type of contact spawning. Not saying it can't happen, just that it has never been documented, and BTAs are pretty well-observed anemones.

The "wrapped up in a ball" thing sounds more like feeding, which doesn't make sense if the anemones were of the same species.

Also, the fact that the "babies" are of a variety of sizes leads me more toward mechanical destruction of the parent, rather than spawning. I've had a parent get shredded by toothed overflows before and produce several different-sized young. If young all came from a single spawning, they should all be the same size, or at least relatively close.

BTAs can bud off a smaller clone (as versus a full split) - I've had it happen in my tank once in15 years, but it's a relatively uncommon occurrence (for comparison, I've had well over 100 "normal" splits, and two spawning events during that same timeframe).

FWIW,
Kevin

 

[museumguy]

I'm pretty sure it wasn't mechanical destruction. All of the anemones started off as about the same size, some are just eating better and growing faster. Some of the biggest ones set up shop right next to the water jets and are growing like weeds.

I realize it doesn't make sense for 2 anemones to fuse together, but I'm 99% sure they at least 'smooshed' together so it looked as if they were sharing the same mouth? opening in the center.

When I said wrapped up in a ball, think about one anemone in its normal position, and the other one on top of it, and they were facing each other.

I'm new to this hobby but I've done a lot of research and read about them a ton and this just seems to be really bizaare behavior. But also really cool now that we got a ton of free nems

You guys are great, I'm learning so much both from the responses to my threads and to the other threads on the forum.

Thanks a lot!

 

[museumguy]

This is a picture of the suspected 'mother' anemone.

Here are a couple pictures of the new buds. Please say they are not majano...