This is something that always bugs the heck out of me, people always saying that you absolutely cannot keep anemones. It wasnt that many years ago that you absolutely could not keep coral. It wasnt that farther back when you absolutely couldnt keep marine fish. See a common thread here??
The biggest argument always seem to be that anemones would live to 100 years or more. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that is just a guess, no one knows how long they live. Naysayers always tell you that keeping an animal that wont live anywhere near its normal life span is irresponsible and even mean. But, think about the coral in our tanks. The coral has essentially an infinite life span. There is no old age, they dont die even if broken and scattered. Despite this, we still keep coral in our tanks. We cannot keep them for even a small fraction of its life span, but THAT is OK. Keep a coral for 10 years that could live a possible 1000yrs and people will say that you are a successful reefkeeper. But, keep a anemone that only lives say, 2years of a possible 100, and people will say that that is a failure, and that you are wrong. If you are going to strike out at anyone keeping anemones, then you should also blindly strike out at anyone keeping corals. Even if you keep a coral your whole life, you still have kept the coral only a tiny fraction of its possible life.
If someone tells you that they kave kept an anemone for years, you quickly slap them down and tell them how wrong they really are. Positive experiences are not valued at all. Think about Gonioporra, every time you hear a new technique for keeping them that might work, it is trumpeted loudly on all the message boards,"We can keep Goni now!!!". Despite that, they keep dying, and we keep trying. Just having an anemone seems to be a crime. Just look at this thread, Christine is not saying that she is loosing anemones right & left, she lost a coral. Yet some people take it as yet another excuse to bash anemone owners. I would like to remind you, the CORAL died, not the anemone, yet no one had any problem with that.
Ok, I am done complaining, but I would like to point out some things that have worked for me in keeping anemones alive. At the time I changed my 75 from a fish tank to a reef (1 1/2 years), I bought anemones. I didnt know about the poor survival rate. I bought a carpet, a long tentacle, and a bubble (E.Quad). I still have the bubble, and the carpet. The long tentacle died in a powerhead accident in Nov. So here goes:
Light: I bought my 2 MH lights at different times, and got different types. I had a 250w, 5500K lamp (now 6500k) & a 175w, 10000, lamp. My anemones DO NOT like high color temps. The positivly love 5500k lights. They are doing well under the 6500k lamp. When an anemone moves in my tank, it always moves towards the lower color temp. After a re-arrangement in my tank this spring, my bubble got put under the 10000k lamp. For about 3 months, I thought it was a goner, it was small, shruken, and looked terrible. Even its clown wouldnt visit it. Later, I noticed that the larger anemones only go under the 5500k lamp, so I moved the bubble. It made a complete recovery from what seemed to be certain death. Yet one more reason to use cheap bulbs.
Food: One common problem is that we generally dont feed enough, to corals, fish or anemones. Give it all that it will take, but never force any food down its oral disc. Most people will be surprised how much an anemone can eat. If its tentacles are retracted, dont feed it. Its tentacles will be pretty sticky when it wants to eat.
Movement: If it wants to move, let it. Dont try to force it into any place it doesnt want to be. To keep them, you have to be prepared to move corals around the anemone, not the other way around. Give plenty of water flow, but also places where it is sheltered. Let the anemone decide where it wants to go. An unhappy anemone is a dead one.
Sorry to ramble and gripe so much, but I would love to see people posting the things that have gone right with their anemones, instead of not posting anything because they will be flamed for having one.
Jon.