bubble tip anemone transformation

[lobstaâ„¢]

i purchased a bubble tip anemone in august from a lfs, it was small, white, and bubble looking tentacles that covered itself
now it grew quite a bit, is brown/green, long tentacled, mouth always in center and exposed
what happened?
i feed it and it seems healthy, it just morphed into what seems to be a different anemone
i have it in a 25 gal with 130watts of pc lighting

 

[noboddi]

white is not a natural color for anems, especially on their tentacles. sign that the had bleached. sounds much healthier now

 

[lobstaâ„¢]

bleached?
my lfs sells bleached btas?
i see them on display still to this day

 

[lobstaâ„¢]

also the tenatacles on mine are long, not bubble like
to me, this seems to contradict the "bubble tip" in the bubble tip anemone

 

[jmadison]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14195685#post14195685 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by lobstaâ"žÂ¢
bleached?
my lfs sells bleached btas?

Sadly, probably... And many MANY do...

BTAs in captivity routinely gain and lose their 'bubbles'. More often than not, IME, BTAs do NOT have the bubbles.

 

[ocellaris123]

bubble anemones can either be bubbly or have long tentacles. An anemone can either be bubbly at one time in the day and have long tentacles at another time in the day. The bubbles are not a sign of health, and yes your bta sounds much healthier than when you purchased it. A stark white anemone is one that has lost is zooanthallae algae, and means that it will starve to death if it does not regain the algae in time. The fact that your anemone is brown/green means it has regained the algae and is "healthy" again.

 

[lobstaâ„¢]

good thing :]
in that case i guess i got what i didn't expect
when i purchased the bta, i liked the way it looked, but now that i realized it was unhealthy, i'm glad i have been taking care of it and i'm glad it is doing well, even though it looks nothing like it did when i purchased it
my clowns love it though, and thats what matters ;]

 

[NirvanaFan]

Glad to see you got it back to being healthy. In regards to the non-bubbled tips. Every once in a while, half of my BTA tips get bubbles on them. Half the anemone will have bubbled tips, and half of them will be long and waving in the current. Don't sweat the non-bubbled tips.

 

[mirthrin]

How do BTA regain the beneficial algea?

 

[Mike31154]

Proper lighting

 

[klepto]

^^ Mike is right. Zooxanthelle is largely photosynthetic- so if you can afford it upgrade to T5s or halides. I am keeping a bta successfully under PCs (it was a fellow reefers and has split many times under these lights) but T5s would be a ideal IMO. At a minimum keep up on changing your bulbs on the PC's.
that said- you can help the health of your anemone greatly by feeding it regularly (use reasonable sized pieces!) with quality fresh/frozen meaty items ie. silversides, shrimp, PE mysis etc. and by soaking it's food in an appropriate vitamin. ie. selco