Fortunato's Anemone Collection

[reefs4lifee]

Hey guys, thought I'd post a few pics of my anemone collection. At the moment it's fish less thanks to ich but loving it anyways.

 

[albano]

Looking good... Reminded me that I have a similar cerianthus anemone in my sump, that you're welcome to, if you'd like...they are fish eaters!

 

[reefs4lifee]

Thanks Alfie! I appreciate the offer but I'm thinking of possibly getting rid of one of these. They are fish eaters and they take up too much real estate as small as they are.

 

[reefs4lifee]

Btw, I wanted to ask a general question to everyone. How would you go about feeding these anemones if they were yours? Like how many days apart between feedings, what to feed and how much of it

 

[Reefahholic]

Nice!

 

[atteb66]

Nice collection of anemones. I was just asking the same feeding question about my Rock Flower I could not get to eat and Reefahholic showed me a mix of seafood frozen. So I tried a small piece of scallop tonight and the Rock Flower ate it. My Mini Max Anemone eats anything I give it but it to is loving the scallop.

2-3 times a week and I give a bit bigger size to the Mini Max but the Rock Flower is smaller so it gets a smaller side like the top of an eraser head size. So it depends on the size of you anemone.

I just love feeding them, so very neat to do.

 

[OrionN]

Your anemones seem to be just the right size for where they are. I would just not feed them to keep them from growing out of their space

 

[Reefahholic]

That light blue Haddoni is a beauty!

I like the Magnifica too, is he bleached? How long you had him?

 

[reefs4lifee]

Your anemones seem to be just the right size for where they are. I would just not feed them to keep them from growing out of their space

Minh, so you think anemones should only be fed if you want them to grow? I was thinking they should be fed a little here and there so they stay in place. I wouldn't want that Magnifica to go on the move again, that would be very very bad lol

That light blue Haddoni is a beauty!

I like the Magnifica too, is he bleached? How long you had him?

Yeah the light blue Haddoni is bleached, I've been feeding it 2-3 silversides every 3-4 days now to get it to color up again. It didn't take the move very well when I downgraded.

 

[M Woodhill]

Your anemones seem to be just the right size for where they are. I would just not feed them to keep them from growing out of their space

Minh, so you think anemones should only be fed if you want them to grow? I was thinking they should be fed a little here and there so they stay in place. I wouldn't want that Magnifica to go on the move again, that would be very very bad lol





Yeah the light blue Haddoni is bleached, I've been feeding it 2-3 silversides every 3-4 days now to get it to color up again. It didn't take the move very well when I downgraded.

i guess the story usually goes by contraries. When a nem's fed well, it moves and splits

i used to feed my bta well--say daily, and they grew fast and when they reached the size ceiling--say 15--20" in diameter, they split and the tank would soon be colonized

so now i dont feed bta at all

 

[hecdr34]

Beautiful setup and anemones. That Mag looks awesome in the current spot hopefully it stays there. One thing I could tell you is to stop feeding them silversides if you want to keep them healthy. It only takes one bad silverside and it will be all downhill from there

 

[reefs4lifee]

i guess the story usually goes by contraries. When a nem's fed well, it moves and splits

i used to feed my bta well--say daily, and they grew fast and when they reached the size ceiling--say 15--20" in diameter, they split and the tank would soon be colonized

so now i dont feed bta at all

Oh alright, I was never aware of that. I thought they needed to be fed like fish are fed. I would like the blue Haddoni to grow a little more and especially color up so I'll probably keep feeding that one and also that baby mint green Haddoni.

Now let me ask this, the food that makes it to the anemones from what I will be feeding my fish, will that have that same affect of growing, splitting and moving or is that a miniscule enough amount that it will just sustain them?

Thanks for all the advice so far!

 

[reefs4lifee]

Beautiful setup and anemones. That Mag looks awesome in the current spot hopefully it stays there. One thing I could tell you is to stop feeding them silversides if you want to keep them healthy. It only takes one bad silverside and it will be all downhill from there

Thank you for the compliment!

Yeah I know about the silverside issue actually but I could not find anything else at my LFS so I just went with silversides. I know they are bony and could cause damage so as soon as I'm done with this pack, I'll feed something else. I was thinking either table shrimp or clams from SFB. What do you guys feed?

 

[M Woodhill]

Now let me ask this, the food that makes it to the anemones from what I will be feeding my fish, will that have that same affect of growing, splitting and moving or is that a miniscule enough amount that it will just sustain them?

Thanks for all the advice so far!

i never target fed any sort of my nem with pellets/flakes so i dont know if any of them caught those free floatin food. i doubt that though for my fish basically got it all in like 3 ms--in particular tangs and chromis--they r pigs

i tank feed with mysis and cyclpeeze and i saw sometimes the tentacles of my mags/gigs could get some but usually those small particles failed to trigger any strong eating response. Unless i target feed with a blasterful of mysis

AND MY CLOWNS WERE and ARE still devils. they dont feed my nem but get food into their own stomach! they always clean up my nem VERY QUICKLY

with proper lightin, mags/gigs do fine without any target feedin. they still will grow but slowly and stay put

i got this ritteri when it lost almost half of its tentacles

i didnt target feed it regularly--very occasionally and like half a year later, it recovered to its full and grow a bit

feeding sometimes brought me more problem. my present mag went down after a mysis feedin and it has since been hospitalized twice, blowin off lots of white/purple/tan chunks/strings ugggggggggggggggggggggggh

 

[garygb]

You have some nice looking specimens there. You asked about feeding, I agree with Minh, you would want to feed none or minimally to maintain a smaller size.

BTAs are the only host anemones that divide on any frequent basis, and so feeding those can result in divisions, which following a division, one clone will move from the other. Feeding per se doesn't cause anemones to move, it's the dividing that leads to movement.

The two things that would be of most concern for me are nutrient control and allelopathy. You will want to keep a close eye on your nitrate level, always trying to keep nitrates undetectable. Anemones are sensitive to nitrates and though they won't drop dead from the presence of nitrates, they will begin to move and in general not look happy. Skimming and use of a good quality activated carbon can help to decrease nutrient load and allelopathy. Anemones produce a significant amount of bioload from their shedding ("slime"). I personally would not keep haddoni in the same tank with magnifica and/or BTAs. In my tanks BTAs and magnifica didn't make long-term good companions. Eventually the BTAs began to get smaller and not look happy until I removed them. Now I house the mags in one tank and the BTAs in another tank.

 

[OrionN]

Minh, so you think anemones should only be fed if you want them to grow? I was thinking they should be fed a little here and there so they stay in place. I wouldn't want that Magnifica to go on the move again, that would be very very bad lol

....

Really depens on what you want. My mag stay the same place feeding or not. I feed my anemone that is recovering and trying to get establish. I feed if I want them to growth. I feed my tank a lot so every time I feed the fish, the anemone get some. Then all my carpet eat my snails slowly one here one there. Then orcasionally they get a fish or two.....

Then if you want to split your anemone like Gary, then feed them well.

If the anemone is healthy, and just the size I want then I don't spot feed them. They don't seem to have any problem from no direct feeding in my tank.

 

[reefs4lifee]

You have some nice looking specimens there. You asked about feeding, I agree with Minh, you would want to feed none or minimally to maintain a smaller size.

BTAs are the only host anemones that divide on any frequent basis, and so feeding those can result in divisions, which following a division, one clone will move from the other. Feeding per se doesn't cause anemones to move, it's the dividing that leads to movement.

The two things that would be of most concern for me are nutrient control and allelopathy. You will want to keep a close eye on your nitrate level, always trying to keep nitrates undetectable. Anemones are sensitive to nitrates and though they won't drop dead from the presence of nitrates, they will begin to move and in general not look happy. Skimming and use of a good quality activated carbon can help to decrease nutrient load and allelopathy. Anemones produce a significant amount of bioload from their shedding ("slime"). I personally would not keep haddoni in the same tank with magnifica and/or BTAs. In my tanks BTAs and magnifica didn't make long-term good companions. Eventually the BTAs began to get smaller and not look happy until I removed them. Now I house the mags in one tank and the BTAs in another tank.

Yeah I know it's risky to keep multiple species, however, I think I've been pretty successful in the past and presently. The biggest factor, IME, is to keep carbon running at all times. I know I made mistakes in the past where I got lazy in order new carbon because for whatever reason I thought it wasn't making much difference but after 2 months of not running carbon with all my anemones, I noticed they all started going downhill. Now I know that it is probably the single most important thing to run if I plan on keeping all these anemones so I will not be making that mistake again. That's why my blue Haddoni is in the condition it's in, didn't change carbon and bam it bleached. Honestly it made out better than a mag and BTA that actually ended up passing instead of just bleaching.

I have no idea what my nitrates are but I don't want to change anything now that things are doing very well, not to mention, I have a pretty big Squamosa along with a Derasa and 2 Maximas so I don't want to cause any detrimental affects towards the clams by bringing everything down too sharply.

 

[reefs4lifee]

Really depens on what you want. My mag stay the same place feeding or not. I feed my anemone that is recovering and trying to get establish. I feed if I want them to growth. I feed my tank a lot so every time I feed the fish, the anemone get some. Then all my carpet eat my snails slowly one here one there. Then orcasionally they get a fish or two.....

Then if you want to split your anemone like Gary, then feed them well.

If the anemone is healthy, and just the size I want then I don't spot feed them. They don't seem to have any problem from no direct feeding in my tank.

Well I may be interested in getting a couple clones off that RBTA just so I can trade for a GBTA or some other strain of BTA so I may continue to feed that one. I would also like to help that blue Haddoni color up and fill in that spot a little more so that will probably get more food along with the baby Haddoni that you identified for me.

I also forgot to add a picture of it because it chose a random, out of sight spot, but I also have a H. Crispa on the sand right through that cave I made.

 

[hecdr34]

Talk about clownfish heaven...lol

 

[M Woodhill]

Well I may be interested in getting a couple clones off that RBTA just so I can trade for a GBTA or some other strain of BTA so I may continue to feed that one. I would also like to help that blue Haddoni color up and fill in that spot a little more so that will probably get more food along with the baby Haddoni that you identified for me.

I also forgot to add a picture of it because it chose a random, out of sight spot, but I also have a H. Crispa on the sand right through that cave I made.

I have a crispa bleached and unanchored for like 1/2 months :deadhorse1:

i doubt if the situation continues, my peppermint shrimps will have a crispa feast