Bright red mag in Red Sea
- Thread starter brad
- Start date
kris4647
New member
These are relatively rare and we will probably never see one in the aquarium trade, I was impressed enough seeing this in person to post it:
I believe this is H. magnifica and it was bright red, brighter than the photo and brighter than any BTA I've seen.
I'd never say never, lol. I recall when there was just one kind of rose anemone and they were rare.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Mad Marine
Member
I dived in the Red Sea. These anemones are not H. magnifica, they are E. quadricolor. Why? Because of tentacle shape, over-all size and where they are positioned - I didn't see any bigger than 30cm, H. magnifica grow to 100cm. There are not out in the open getting blown back in forth with strong current, they are usually found in crevices. Just amazingly vibrant colored E. quadricolor!
brad
Active member
These are not common, this was the only one I saw, and several divers familiar with the red sea said they are very rare. It is definitely not E. quadricolor. If you saw a lot of them, you saw something else. Is it definitely H. Magnifica? Hard for me to be certain, but looked more like that than any other anemone I've seen. It is a host anemone, so it is likely a document host species, or a completely undocumented one. It is not an obscure described species that no one on this board has heard of.
There is a lot of footage of "anemone city" at Daedalus. Here is 1 example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV5q9ya8dhM&ab_channel=SuzannaM/y2013
The Daedalus anemones looked identical except for the color. They are larger than 30cm, but no where near 100cm. They are colonial, and people who dived "anemone city" over the years told me it been getting bigger. They are out in the open getting blown back and forth with very strong current.
I've never seen tentacles shaped like this on a BTA. These look like fat pipes with rounded ends and the same diameter in all parts of every tentacle. BTAs usually either have the 'bulb' ends or are somewhat tapered. I've seen some long thin BTA tentacles that mostly the same diameter everywhere, but never 1/10th this thickness and usually longer, at least in relation to the anemone. I have an H. magnifica in my tank, and the shape is somewhat similar, at least more so than anything else.
If you look at the foot, it is a different color than the tentacles, with a sharp live dividing the colors. I don't think I've ever seen this with a BTA. Multicolored BTA's tend to have gradients and varying colors throughout, not sharp divides with everything else being exactly the same color.
There is a lot of footage of "anemone city" at Daedalus. Here is 1 example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV5q9ya8dhM&ab_channel=SuzannaM/y2013
The Daedalus anemones looked identical except for the color. They are larger than 30cm, but no where near 100cm. They are colonial, and people who dived "anemone city" over the years told me it been getting bigger. They are out in the open getting blown back and forth with very strong current.
I've never seen tentacles shaped like this on a BTA. These look like fat pipes with rounded ends and the same diameter in all parts of every tentacle. BTAs usually either have the 'bulb' ends or are somewhat tapered. I've seen some long thin BTA tentacles that mostly the same diameter everywhere, but never 1/10th this thickness and usually longer, at least in relation to the anemone. I have an H. magnifica in my tank, and the shape is somewhat similar, at least more so than anything else.
If you look at the foot, it is a different color than the tentacles, with a sharp live dividing the colors. I don't think I've ever seen this with a BTA. Multicolored BTA's tend to have gradients and varying colors throughout, not sharp divides with everything else being exactly the same color.
Last edited:
Mad Marine
Member
Yes, the anemones in that video are H. magnifica and in this one too (so I could be wrong). Different dive sites, different anemones;
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=203818154875915
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=203818154875915
Similar threads
