I bought a blue haddoni nem about 18 months ago, I held off posting that it was doing well as some people say they can take a long time to finally die even when they look good after a month or 2. Anyways I figure by now if it was going to die due to collection it would have by now.
I read that it is 100% required that you feed haddoni nems. I havent fed it more then a handful of times since I got it. This was for a few reasons, 1-it didnt want to eat the shrimp I had, 2-I was trying to run a skimmerless system so wanted to keep nutrients low, 3- I wanted to see if it was needed.
So over the 18 months I have had it, it has probably grown from about 8" in diameter to 12" or so. I feed a mixture of mysis and brine shrimp and krill to the tank so Im sure it gets some food but the growth has to be mainly from the lighting. It was under 2 250W MH lights for almost a year and has been under LEDs the rest of the time. It didnt seem to notice a change from the MH to the LEDs and if it did it didnt move or shrink up.
It was hosting 2 gold bar marron clowns for about 12 months but when I moved it to a different tank I removed the gsm clowns because they would remove all the sand from its foot causing it to move. I am currently trying to get an occelaris to live in it. Unfortunatly the larger female wanted to go right into it the day after I added it to the tank. I guess her slime coat wasnt up to snuff because it stung her and she ended up dying from it. Which leads me into my next observation, this clown is the only fish I have ever lost to the anemone. I dont know if Im lucky, or maybe had smart fish. But I have had it in with tangs, clowns, gobies, damsels, dwarf angels and Im probably missing something.
Now to describe my tank(s) a bit. It started out in a 120 that had been running as it was for about 8months before I added the anemone. That said the rock came out of a system that had been running for well over a year so was fairly established. The tank had about 180lbs of live rock in the tank and another 50 or 60lbs in a remote bucket that was beside the sump. I had GFO and carbon running in TLF reactors pretty much all the time. I didnt run a skimmer but had a fairly light fish load. As for coral I have a pretty wide mix of everything mushrooms, zoas, LPS, SPS, brains, softies. I only dose bio-cal. It is currently in a 65 with a 20 gallon sump, now has a skimmer (fairly large bio laod), 100lbs of rock out of my 120 aswell as the 2 reactors.
I break one of the main 'rules' of reef keeping 'test your water'. I have all the tests but they are expired by now. I used them when I started out 4 or 5 years ago but very quickly noticed that my tank told me when something was off. I dont dose anything so when something goes wrong my first step is a water change. My standard water change was 20 gallons on a 160 gallon system, weekly. If something happened I would start with that and do another one the next day if things hadnt improved. For the most part this has worked very well for me. I had one issue last summer with heat but that wouldnt have been changed by testing. I have a refractometer to make saltwater and use only RODI water.
This is just my observations for my anemone for the last 18 months. They are not incredibly difficult to keep as long as your tank is relatively stable. They dont require feeding and wont eat every fish in your tank. I may have a freak but at any rate its healthy and happy in my tank.
I read that it is 100% required that you feed haddoni nems. I havent fed it more then a handful of times since I got it. This was for a few reasons, 1-it didnt want to eat the shrimp I had, 2-I was trying to run a skimmerless system so wanted to keep nutrients low, 3- I wanted to see if it was needed.
So over the 18 months I have had it, it has probably grown from about 8" in diameter to 12" or so. I feed a mixture of mysis and brine shrimp and krill to the tank so Im sure it gets some food but the growth has to be mainly from the lighting. It was under 2 250W MH lights for almost a year and has been under LEDs the rest of the time. It didnt seem to notice a change from the MH to the LEDs and if it did it didnt move or shrink up.
It was hosting 2 gold bar marron clowns for about 12 months but when I moved it to a different tank I removed the gsm clowns because they would remove all the sand from its foot causing it to move. I am currently trying to get an occelaris to live in it. Unfortunatly the larger female wanted to go right into it the day after I added it to the tank. I guess her slime coat wasnt up to snuff because it stung her and she ended up dying from it. Which leads me into my next observation, this clown is the only fish I have ever lost to the anemone. I dont know if Im lucky, or maybe had smart fish. But I have had it in with tangs, clowns, gobies, damsels, dwarf angels and Im probably missing something.
Now to describe my tank(s) a bit. It started out in a 120 that had been running as it was for about 8months before I added the anemone. That said the rock came out of a system that had been running for well over a year so was fairly established. The tank had about 180lbs of live rock in the tank and another 50 or 60lbs in a remote bucket that was beside the sump. I had GFO and carbon running in TLF reactors pretty much all the time. I didnt run a skimmer but had a fairly light fish load. As for coral I have a pretty wide mix of everything mushrooms, zoas, LPS, SPS, brains, softies. I only dose bio-cal. It is currently in a 65 with a 20 gallon sump, now has a skimmer (fairly large bio laod), 100lbs of rock out of my 120 aswell as the 2 reactors.
I break one of the main 'rules' of reef keeping 'test your water'. I have all the tests but they are expired by now. I used them when I started out 4 or 5 years ago but very quickly noticed that my tank told me when something was off. I dont dose anything so when something goes wrong my first step is a water change. My standard water change was 20 gallons on a 160 gallon system, weekly. If something happened I would start with that and do another one the next day if things hadnt improved. For the most part this has worked very well for me. I had one issue last summer with heat but that wouldnt have been changed by testing. I have a refractometer to make saltwater and use only RODI water.
This is just my observations for my anemone for the last 18 months. They are not incredibly difficult to keep as long as your tank is relatively stable. They dont require feeding and wont eat every fish in your tank. I may have a freak but at any rate its healthy and happy in my tank.
