Marc, the purple is the female and the green is the male. I know now because they just spawned in my 30 g tank.
Well I just finish doing a bunch of water change on my tank. I was out of the office for about 1 hr this afternoon. When I got back at about 6 the tank was a little cloudy. Looking closely the green H. malu was pumping out sperms. I grab a few pictures with my phone and start to do water change. I keep 12 g of premixed water all the time in my office for situation like this. I just slow siphon the water our right at the mouth of the male and got most of the sperm out, replace water 1 g at a time while I do this. I squirt some of the sperm laden water to the female. The strange thing is that even as the male discharge the sperm, the female did not release any eggs. Most of the eggs in the tentacles seem to disappear down to the body of the anemone but none was released through the mouth. This morning when I see the eggs, I estimated that there must be 100+ eggs in the tentacles total, now I only see maybe 10. There was no egg released.
At 7 PM my light turns off. I did not wanted to change the usual condition of the tank, so I did not turn the tank light on but just use my office overhead light only. The male have finished releasing sperms about 45 min ago and the female have not release any eggs. After the 12 g water change, the tank is slightly cloudy only and the spawn even was over with no eggs released. I only see a few eggs in the tentacle of the female while when I first got back to the office and notice the spawn, most of the eggs was still in the tentacles. Now almost all are in the body of the female. The female column is raised about 1.5 inches above the sand
Is it possible that H. malu use internal fertilization and release fully formed babies? Anybody ever have H. crispa or H. malu released eggs? If internal fertilization for this species is the case, I am in luck. I will keep you guys and gals update. I will see if I can get the pictures out of my phone and post on this thread later. If anything developed from this even, I will repost in a new thread. IMO, it is highly likely that H. malu use internal fertilization as it is not very logical for the anemones release eggs and sperms too far apart. I am very excited regarding this even. I keep multiple anemones in the same tank, hoping that this would happen. I keep the anemones that I think is H. malu because I read about Anna Scott able to reproduce them in aquarium (her initial writing indicated that this is the species not H. crispa). I hope I can do the same. We will see over the next several weeks.
About my tank, it is a Finnex all glass tank (with a back chamber came with a skimmer which was removed) with 150 DE MH. It is skimmer less. I have a clip on fan that turn on with the MH and a Finnex digital heater in the back chamber set at 80 degree. My office temperature varies usually mid 70’s. It just got much cooler over the last few weeks and the day length is much shorter now than the last few months. The tank is right inside a wall to wall window with night light from the parking lot below (office is on 3 floor). Lost month I have start to run carbon to clear the water. The tank has 3 inches of fine sand, set up 3 years ago and has always at the same place. I got somebody change 10 g of the water the first week of every month for me. It is fishless at this time although I had an Onyx Percula pair in it until about 2 months ago. They are at
www.gcreef.com at this time producing some very nice babies. If any of you guys and gals want nice Onyx, you may want to contact them. I have had pictures of these anemones and fish in the past here and there.
Anyway, I am leaving my office now. I am in luck because my wife and children are leaving town this afternoon. I am on call this weekend so I will have to hang around the hospital. I will see if I an extract the picture from the phone and will post them here later.
