Heteractis magnifca tank build

[Ron Popeil]

tall stands are great. youll be glad its tall.

i currently have two lumenarcs suspended over my tanks, and for awhile they suited me just fine. but its started to eat at me now to build a box around them to tie them more together with the stand, and definitely clean up how everything ties together. these two light boxes would be flush with the dimensions of the tanks they hang above, and would be several inches above the water, helping with heat issues and any time i want my hand in the tank. ive also been thinking about adding some T5s above each tank as well, which would only be possible inside a canopy like box.

so ultimately, i think your plans are coming along quite nicely.

 

[Gig 'em]

Right now I'm considering using stowaway sliders that will connect to the left wall of the hood and a piece of plywood that will hold the MH. On the right side I'm going to install gas springs to open so I can access the inside of the tank after sliding the MH out of the way. This would be easier than having the hood lift open since it's so tall and would definitely add a "wow" factor to the set up. As for heat, I don't want to hang the canopy over the tank due to the college apartments I'm living in. What I am going to do is buy to fans; one built into the back of the hood near the top facing out and one near the bottom facing in. This way cool air will be blown in on the surface of the water and warm air accumulating at the top of the stand will be blown out.

 

[Gig 'em]

Well I did it, I bought a magnifica. I'm setting up the 135 tomorrow and I won't be able to transfer the fish for another few weeks. I know I shouldn't have bought the anemone yet, but I couldn't resist! Who knows if it will survive; it's too early to tell from what I've seen. But so far so good. It took forever to get it out of the bag, slowly unsticking the foot from the side. The mouth is very tight and the tentacles are pretty sticky. I tried to feed it some mysis and caviar, it grabbed on, and is slowly eating them I think. I took some pictures from above seeing the mouth open and the mysis and caviar entering the mouth. In the pic you can't really see the mysis, which is weird because I can see them in person right now.

The anemone is in a half filled 30 gallon sump I have for the new aquarium with my 400 W 10,000K lumen Bright directly over it. This is to keep it away from my densely packed aquarium and have it in an easily controllable environment. It is plumbed into the main system so it's pretty stable.
What is bothering me right now is the anemone is VERY short, it is not extended and it's hard to see the foot. Do you think this is due to the intensity of the light? Maybe it's still getting acclimated? I look forward to hearing comments and advice.
Here's a pic from about an hour ago after the lights had just come on.

 

[apayne]

Looks great, nice find!!!!!

I hope it does well for you, it looks healthy to me.

Aaron

 

[tvrsir]

nice anemone, where did you find this beauty?

 

[Ron Popeil]

when first acclimated, my anemones would always press themselves into a low squat. especially when on a smooth surface like glass.

it looks like youll have a beautiful specimen.

 

[tvrsir]

nice anemone, where did you find this beauty?

 

[Gig 'em]

I actually got it from blue zoo aquatic. I went to buy some fish with one of their sales, noticed a magnifica was only $40 and decided it was worth the try. I'm pretty happy with what I got. I'm just hoping it will get healthier soon

 

[tufacody]

please keep us posted. I'm curious if your will go thru the same procedure as mine did : looks great for about 4 days, then start a period of rapid inflation/deflation and eventual death.

Thank you for chronicling this. More so than any other animal, I am most interested in the techniques people have used to get mags back to health and keep them that way. If you'd post your water parameters i'd certainky be greatful. Thanks!

 

[Gig 'em]

Well today was pretty stressful. A long serious of mishaps lead to water being spewed all over the place, the breaker cutting out, and loosing a couple gallons of water on the floor. A reef chromis and my flame angel died. This situation couldn't have come at a worse time during the critical acclimation days of my mag. But besides the disaster and stress it looks.... fine. Which I'm very skeptical about. I've worked 24 hours this weekend and have hardly been home to monitor it's progress so I can't really say on it's overall health. My method right now is not shocking it with too much light. I have the 400 MH on twice a day for a few ours each period. Once in the morning before work and once at night when I'm chilling out. I feed it once every night with mysis and it seems to take most of them. Since I've added around 50% of the water in the last few days the parameters are all perfect. The temperature has remained at 79. Salinity at 1.026. I just put some mysis in it's tentacles and it grabbed on and opened it's mouth. Slowly eating them now, kind of. The mouth seems to have closed up again with a lot of mysis still outside the mouth. I am not sure how much it ate, if at all..... Anyways here are some pictures.
Mouth tight before feeding

Mouth right after mysis introduced

Anemone last night with flash on

 

[Gig 'em]

Here's a short video clip I took of the anemone for realistic view of it's health.

 

[Gig 'em]

I just got home and I looked at it to check and it doesn't seem to be doing too well. It's not as inflated as it usually is and the mouth is a bit open. Granted it does look like it may be pooping. There is some brown stringy stuff I imagine is magnifica poop in the tank and some brown stuff coming out of it now. I took a quick picture. My BTA's poop doesn't look this solid, but more stringy usually, so I'm not sure what to think of it. What is your opinion on it?

I turned the lights on for another 6 hour light period and it has regained it's turgidity. I'm hoping it looked sick because it was pooping, but knowing this species from watching other people I have a feeling it's bad news.

 

[Gig 'em]

I tried to get a video of me feeding it today, but it didn't work too well; I forgot my hand isn't as transparent as I thought it was :crazy1: but I wanted to show you the reaction the anemone had to food. The whole anemone reacts as you can see from the little anemone shown in the clip. The anemone ate all of the mysis this time for sure.

 

[Gig 'em]

video:

 

[Gig 'em]

The magnifica is looking pretty good today. It hasn't really deflated and it ate a quarter of a fresh scallop just now. I don't want to become too optimistic out of fear of jinxing it and taking a turn for the worst, but it's doing better than it was and it may have a chance. I hope someone replies soon since this thread seems to be more of a blog than a forum :fun4: Haha, no but any advice or questions are welcomed.

 

[mrbncal]

I'm jealous, thats a beauty. Seems like its getting along fine and your doing a great job. I have wanted to try one for years but have never pulled the trigger. Congrats.

 

[Gig 'em]

Thanks mrbncal, but unfortunately I'm far from convinced that this anemone is healthy. I just got back from the plumbing store to get pvc piping for my bulkheads, and the anemone looks..... interesting. But it doesn't look like a good interesting. Here's a picture. If anyone has seen this behavior before I'd love to hear of what it may mean.

 

[crsandoval]

I just switched tanks, and mine looked horrific for at least a week. Almost the same as that, best that I did was leave it alone.

Another thing to check, is to see if the tentacles are sticky, that is one measure of good health. They may not be only because you just got this guy.

 

[Gig 'em]

yeah I definitely know not to touch it or mess with it. It's been nice working so much because I don't have that temptation to change things :lolspin: I would check the stickiness now, but since the tentacles are deflated I won't. They have been sticky the past couple of days though. When I took this picture the lights had just gone off; have other mag's done this at night? It seems to want to close up, but the gastrovascular cavity is full with the scallop I fed it earlier so it can't totally. That's just my hypothesis at least. Any other ideas?

 

[Gig 'em]

Well it doesn't look too good. The anemone was looking fine this morning and when I got back from the gym it was deflated with it's stomach open. Not a gaping hole, but more like stretched open with the gastrovascular lining slightly protruding out. Here's a picture so you can see for yourself. My assumption is it's on a downward spiral with the recent deflating spells. I'll keep posting it's progress though so others can see a step by step process of this specimen to compare to theirs if they choose to attempt