BTA Propagation Tank

A

Ad Meliora

New member
Over the next year or so I really want to set up a BTA propagation tank.

My motivation has been increasing with the rising prices for some of our BTA morphs here in Australia. Rose Bubble Tips retail around $350 on the low end - $550 for decent size ones. I've only seen anything equivalent to the Sunfire BTA over there in America a couple of times, which got bought with a private bid of ~$1000 I think. Crazy.

So if you guys were to set one up, how would you do it? What's the perfect set up? I'm thinking wide and shallow, with extra precautions for anything to do with pumps and wavemakers. Probably sumpless, though a closed loop system with a sump could be good. Ideally the costs/overheads would have to be as low as possible in order to make profit out of it, especially seeming that it would take a while to build up stock levels to a point where you would want to start selling them. I've been reading as much as possible, and found a few videos like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwb92qDQABs

Also, I need to get some experience with that actual propagation. I've seen debates over cutting vs encouraging splitting with feeding and slight system shocks. I've read a lot into the cutting side of things (one clean cut, etc) but I haven't actually done it yet. Going to practice with some cheaper green morphs before I get into anything rarer.

So any ideas, advice, or experience to share? How would you (or did you) do it? Even if it's from propagation experience from other animals, corals or fish etc. I understand actually making a profit from these things after all the overheads is always the challenge. I pretty much permanently lurk over here in these forums (the Australian ones can be dead quiet) and I have a lot of respect for the combined experience and knowledge here.

Thanks
Ad Meliora
:beer:
 
I would probably do the wide shallow with no rock or substrate in the prop tank. Easier to get them off to frag. Can feed them everyday/other day to get hem to split or cut them. I wouldn't trust the stress split to much (as if cutting them in half isn't stressful lol). In a system I would want, I would put a sump just so I could keep my equipment out of the prop tank. If your cutting them, maybe get a skimmer as well. Good luck! Those prices are crazy! I heard ricordea are crazy expensive there too.
 
enchelycore808 said:
I would probably do the wide shallow with no rock or substrate in the prop tank. Easier to get them off to frag. Can feed them everyday/other day to get hem to split or cut them. I wouldn't trust the stress split to much (as if cutting them in half isn't stressful lol). In a system I would want, I would put a sump just so I could keep my equipment out of the prop tank. If your cutting them, maybe get a skimmer as well. Good luck! Those prices are crazy! I heard ricordea are crazy expensive there too.
Click to expand...

A lot is, even though we have high supply all our nicest stuff goes straight over to you guys. On top of that, you can't import any living invertebrates to Australia so we don't get cheap anything from all our Asian neighbours. I assume we have stuff that's a good price but I'm not sure. I'm mainly into anemones, and purple gigs go well into the thousands. I'm in the wrong country :(

I think I'd prefer sump as well, though I could always partition part of the tank off, doesn't have to be pretty. Cutting seems to be a good way to go, but when you have 20+ nems I wonder how much stress that would put on the system.

Thanks for the reply!
 
Anemone12 said:
I'm assuming you flew over to us? How long of a flight was it?
Click to expand...

m0nkie said:
Traveling to asia/australia is about 12-14hrs... pita..
Click to expand...

12-14 hours if you can afford it maybe. I had 2 stopovers, total journey time from US hotel to Australian Airport ended up being 30 hours :uhoh3:
I've never felt that insane.

Anemone12 said:
Can't you bring it on the plane with you? I'm pretty sure you can but customs would have to check.
Click to expand...

If you declared any invertebrate they would destroy it and if you didn't and they found out, Australia has very intense customs laws.
The maximum penalty for illegal importing or exporting wildlife
under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation
Act 1999 is A$100,000 and/or 10 years jail.​
It's a shame you can't bring something in under strict quarantine in order to establish propagation here. Saying all this things definitely get smuggled in occasionally, I've seen Ricordia Florida around for instance.

lavi1000 said:
Look at this


http://www.aqua.org.il/forums/showthread.php?t=326084


I start cut then in two

They like it
Click to expand...

Thanks!
 
I've been bifurcating BTA for a few years. It is pretty easy just cut them in half. I have never been able to get a nem to split on its own.
While I've split them into smaller pieces, the recovery is longer for smaller pieces. It takes about a week for the animal to recover and after about 6 weeks it is ready for (in my case) give away.
The secret is being able to keep healthy anemone in the first place. I keep them in 10 gal tanks doing 2 x 25% water change each week.
I guess if you want to do this commercially you probably want to keep them in the smallest tank possible. I've kept them in a 1.5 liter holding tank for a few weeks doing daily 100% water changes. I keep the holding tank in a bigger tank for thermal stability.

If you PM me I'll give you more details.
 
I agree with Ray. There are few saltwater inverts as robust as a BTA IF YOU HAVE A GOOD ENVIRONMENT IN THE FIRST PLACE. I have had a BTA go through a pump before - not a powerhead but a PUMP - and become anemone soup. One of the larger pieces actually survived and grew to become an adult. (I would not recommend this procedure, however, since I started with one anemone and ended up with one).

If you wanted to go commercial, I would recommend three isolated setups. (1) Anemones about to be cut - heavy feed and trying to get them super healthy (2) recovery tank(s) after being cut. Possible antibiotic use and anemones releasing stress chemicals (3) Recovery tank(s) after the first week or two when the anemone is on the rebound.

Note this advice is ONLY for BTAs!!! The only other asexual clown anemone is H. magnifica, and they are MUCH more fickle about being cut. Any other clown anemone that you cut will be the death of the anemone - 99.9% of the time!
 
raythepilot said:
I've been bifurcating BTA for a few years. It is pretty easy just cut them in half. I have never been able to get a nem to split on its own.
While I've split them into smaller pieces, the recovery is longer for smaller pieces. It takes about a week for the animal to recover and after about 6 weeks it is ready for (in my case) give away.
The secret is being able to keep healthy anemone in the first place. I keep them in 10 gal tanks doing 2 x 25% water change each week.
I guess if you want to do this commercially you probably want to keep them in the smallest tank possible. I've kept them in a 1.5 liter holding tank for a few weeks doing daily 100% water changes. I keep the holding tank in a bigger tank for thermal stability.

If you PM me I'll give you more details.
Click to expand...

So you prefer each individual BTA in its own small tank?
Will do! Thanks Ray

BonsaiNut said:
I agree with Ray. There are few saltwater inverts as robust as a BTA IF YOU HAVE A GOOD ENVIRONMENT IN THE FIRST PLACE. I have had a BTA go through a pump before - not a powerhead but a PUMP - and become anemone soup. One of the larger pieces actually survived and grew to become an adult. (I would not recommend this procedure, however, since I started with one anemone and ended up with one).

If you wanted to go commercial, I would recommend three isolated setups. (1) Anemones about to be cut - heavy feed and trying to get them super healthy (2) recovery tank(s) after being cut. Possible antibiotic use and anemones releasing stress chemicals (3) Recovery tank(s) after the first week or two when the anemone is on the rebound.

Note this advice is ONLY for BTAs!!! The only other asexual clown anemone is H. magnifica, and they are MUCH more fickle about being cut. Any other clown anemone that you cut will be the death of the anemone - 99.9% of the time!
Click to expand...

Antibiotic use is something I haven't seen much use of over here. I know Americans had to really get on the ball with it because of the long and poor shipping conditions for gigs. I like the idea of separate systems, though I'd like to not have to duplicate hardware when possible. Do you think the Grow tank and the Recovery tank could share water

northernreefe said:
I fed mine heavily, (once a day at minimum). Ended up with six in a few months. Had to back off the feeding nobody else needed one.
Click to expand...

todddye said:
What did you feed them on a daily basis? How big were they when they split?
Click to expand...

+1, what did you feed them? Pretty impressive

Thanks for all the replies everyone. Keep them coming
 
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