Blue LTA -

[marc price]

found @ Petco! The employee said they never got such a large blue LTA before but have had smaller blue ones. I don't know when as the store has only been open for a year and I've yet to see them. They also had a nice cork screw green one too. Prior to this I've only seen small brown or small slightly greenish ones at my two local Petco stores worth visiting.
You know, I couldn't just leave it there -

Acclimated slowly replacing H20 100% 2X last night from 8:00-11:00. Dug in @ 2:30am. I was too tired to guide from the front glass so it stays, for now anyway.
Assuming it does well, I'm thinking of first moving the light fixture slightly to the back of the tank in hopes of it following the light and or secondly, aiming a power head at the glass just above it. I'd like it to move a few inches on it's own and without actually attaching it's foot from the glass bottom beneath the sand. Any suggestions for how and when to coax it a few inches out from the glass?

 

[Winwood]

Sweet! Looks like a monster!

 

[RBU1]

nice looking marc

 

[Pinkskunk]

eventually you will see that all the blue tentacles turn white as the others. if that is a true blue LTA, Petco would be hte last place to get it as they usually go to the most reputable chain and would fetch big money. i hope i am wrong but i am so sure that eventually it will be a white or brown lta.

 

[davocean]

eventually you will see that all the blue tentacles turn white as the others. if that is a true blue LTA, Petco would be hte last place to get it as they usually go to the most reputable chain and would fetch big money. i hope i am wrong but i am so sure that eventually it will be a white or brown lta.

I don't think there are white LTAs unless they are bleached, but more so tan/beige.
Yeah, I hope yours does better than mine, looked exactly the same.
I bought mine on impulse when I saw it, never seen that color before.
Upon research, most thought it was a purple that was bleached.
Of the couple other blues I found, they both turned brownish/beige after time.

 

[davocean]

This is a pic of the one I had.

 

[marc price]

Pinkskunk, it sounds like you're implying two different blue LTA's, one which is blue in the ocean and one that's perhaps a bleached out purple, what do you mean by "true blue LTA"?

davocean, yours does look very similar, maybe more bleached, did you lose it and or did the blue fade away?

I've seen the purple/darker honey-amber-brownish tentacles, purple with whitish tips and bright magenta tentacled LTA color morphs as well as bleached ones and don't think this is bleached specimen of either. Besides, and i don't really know but if it were a purple or magenta i'd think the color would return with regained zooxanthellae.
This is the second time i found a blue locally. Come to think of it iirc, the last time the employee said the one sold before i came was very very blue, the one i saw was more like this. He had said they're not known to keep the blue color of their tentacles. They were also more then twice what i paid at pecto.

Furthermore, Julian Sprung Inverts A Quick Ref Guide has a pic of different colored LTA's in a fish store. Although it could be the photo/print process, the bleached out purples look like a light lavender and white, not blue. There is also a underwater pic of a M. doreensis/A. polymnus in the Salomon Isl., which has a blue tint to the tentacles with a olive-tanish upper and thick bright white bands lower to the oral disc. Now i don't know if the blue is real or a photography artifact, therefore it is almost prof of the color's existence in the wild. So, if the blue color is naturally occurring and always lost over time in aquaria we must be doing something wrong. Perhaps not enough light, UVA, UVB radiation or dietary supplement?

Any others have experience with blue LTA's to add to this, Phender, Shutiny, anyone?

 

[davocean]

Unfortunately I lost that one and 2 other LTAs after feeding what I think were bad silversides, so I never got to see end results.
I researched hard here and found 2 others same color, older postings.
I PM'd both, and they both said blue faded out and turned more brown than anything.
I have no idea what their conditions were, but one person seemed fairly knowledgable on reefkeeping.
I've seen other colors recently, red, and a neon green I've never seen before.
But these days I'm so skeptical.
Almost always it seems to me most LTAs do become more tanish, w/ more of a color highlight.
I'll be curious to see what yours does.

 

[eho72]

This is a blue LTA I got 3 weeks ago from aquasd.com. It was pretty much an impulse purchase because I have not seen ones in that color before. I really hope the color does not fade because it looks great right now when the tentacles are extended. If it fades, time to go get a blue or red carpet.

 

[davocean]

Nice, Aquasd has nice stuff, and I trust Will.
Thats where I saw the recent bright colored ones that were so tempting if I weren't seeking out a Malu.
Again, will be interested in seeing progress, keep pics coming.

 

[vaporize]

Usually come in three colors.

blue & white (like the one shown)
green & white
brown & white

& the rest of the other LTA.

 

[davocean]

Usually come in three colors.

blue & white (like the one shown)
green & white
brown & white

& the rest of the other LTA.

Not sure where your info on this came from, but white on a LTA is a sign of a bleached LTA, and this will turn beige/tanish color as it becomes more healthy and builds zooanthelle.

 

[vaporize]

Not sure where your info on this came from, but white on a LTA is a sign of a bleached LTA, and this will turn beige/tanish color as it becomes more healthy and builds zooanthelle.

when anemones bleach, it does not show different shading, the whole thing lose color, notice the coloration it has a transition in color

 

[Ron Popeil]

this is only partly true. long tentacles like this do tend to color up and lose their blue coloration. bleached gigantaes can also appear with misleading colors, giving the impression of a purple or blue specimen only to darken to a brownish color.

 

[davocean]

when anemones bleach, it does not show different shading, the whole thing lose color, notice the coloration it has a transition in color

I can actually show pics showing otherwise, a bleached nem that continued to bleach out and showing a fade in color.
It was actually my blue LTA

 

[marc price]

...except the tips, they may change in intensity usually becoming more intense with a translucent quality. for instance the bleached yet apparently healthy rbta's i've seen have glassy-milk white tentacle from the oral disc up to a hot pink tip about 1/8 the overall length.
i just don't see how a bleaching brown would turn to blue, unless it was a dark brown and nobody's saying that. has anyone ever had a bleaching brown lta anemone turn blue? if so i haven't read of it. colorful corals brown out, sometimes returning to bright colors when conditions are favorable or some other trigger.
if these blues do exist in nature my first thought is loss of color due to lack of sunlight intensity and uv radiation of these shallow water species, or not? dr mac told me wrt color, they'll dive a reef one day, it'll be brown only to be a bright color a few months later and vice versa.
getting back to anemones, i'm aware of gbta's and antifreeze green S. haddoni carpets losing color whereas rbtas and red S. haddoni hold their color well. i think something's missing.

 

[davocean]

I'm pretty sure you are describing same thing, color in mine even while fading remained brighter at tips.
Mine was pretty bight blue at LFS, w/ a little white more so at disc, typical of a shipped nem so I got it figuring I'd bring it back.
It continued to fade alot over next few days, again, common.
I'm pretty certain mine had a damaged foot, never seemed to settle, while my other 2 LTAs were just fine in same tank.
Comments I got were that it could have been a purple that looked blue from being bleached, maybe, not sure as I didn't get to find out.
I fed all 3 LTAs a silverside one night, an hour or so they all 3 regurged, turned inside out, released, and melted next day.
The other 2 were perfectly healthy before that feeding.
I hope yours does well and retains blue, big fan of LTAs myself, have had many.
My last green LTA I had 5.5 years but went w/ system when I had to downsize.
Keep pics coming, i'll be following this one.

 

[Apercula]

My green LTA was monochrome faded (bleached) tan when I got it (2years ago), after about 6months in my tank it began changing to green (15k 175w mh lights), its now solid green under 20k halides. I purchased the red LTA in early December from a local reefer who had it for 2years.

 

[vaporize]

I fed all 3 LTAs a silverside one night, an hour or so they all 3 regurged, turned inside out, released, and melted next day.
The other 2 were perfectly healthy before that feeding.

I recently read something on the CORAL magazine website saying that alot of the human food might have small traces of chlorine in it, that might explain why some of the "quick frozen" food I fed to anemones are not welcome (comparing to some aquarium stuff).

Is the silverside - aquarium product or human food product?

 

[davocean]

Silversides are commonly sold at LFS for fish/animal food.