Host anemones allopathic interactions

[OrionN]

Please help me out.

Please post if you have personal knowledge of allopathic interaction between different host anemone species. Please personal information only, no hearsay from someone else.

I can keep Malu/BTA/Gigantea together for a significant period of time. They seem to do great and continue to do well.

Magnifica and Malu seem to do well together, no problem.

Two attempts at keeping Magnifica and Haddoni ended in failure. While this may not be due to allopathic interaction, I cannot find a reason that I can attribute to the decline of both the Magnifica and Haddoni in the tank. They have never been in physical contact.


Who have keep Magnifica with another species? Did they do well or fare badly?

Who have keep Gigantea with another species in the same system? How did they do?

Who have keep Magnifica and Gigantea together and how did they do?

I never believe in allopathic interaction before. I have set up a two tank system for my Magnifica and Gigantea. Now I am not so sure and don't know if I should put them together.

 

[bradleym]

I have 2 magnifica, 1 haddoni, 4 bta, 1 malu, 1 aurora in a 210g. Aurora 1 month, malu 2 months, haddoni 1 bta and 1 magnifica 3 months, other btas and 2nd magnifica 6-8 months. All seem healthy, but some bta tentacles are all oddly twisted.

 

[Ron Popeil]

i could never keep magnifica with haddoni i attempted this a few times. in this case, typically the magnificas fared the worst. the two times when i attempted gigantae with magnificas, the gigantaes did not fare well.

i can keep crispa and magnifica without problems.

 

[DrDNA]

I have a magnifica, gig, haddoni, and malu in a 300 together. I also run ozone, so that may be helping.
I have tried keeping a BTA with other anemones without ozone and the BTA usually seems to lose.

 

[82ndengineer]

So far I have 3 RBTA's, my 2 mags( started as 1) and a crispa. All are doing well but are nowhere near each other in my 240. System has an overall volume of almost 400 gallons so that may be a factor. But I also don't run carbon at all. I really want a gig but I also want it to do well but can't get the misses to okay another tank.

 

[garygb]

I have kept magnificas and BTAs together, and in time, the BTAs began to look bad. I have kept crispa and BTAs without any problems.

 

[82ndengineer]

Also have a flower/rock anemone and some mini mini's as well. Mine have all been together for over a year except the crispa which is less than a month in system.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

I'm not sure the correct terminology is being applied here.

The definition of allelopathy:
Allelopathy is a biological phenomenon by which an organism produces one or more biochemicals that influence the growth, survival, and reproduction of other organisms. These biochemicals are known as allelochemicals and can have beneficial (positive allelopathy) or detrimental (negative allelopathy) effects on the target organisms. Allelochemicals are a subset of secondary metabolites, which are not required for metabolism (i.e. growth, development and reproduction) of the allelopathic organism.
Allelopathy is characteristic of certain plants, algae, bacteria, coral, and fungi.

Anemones might have chemical weapons (I'm not sure that they do!) but they DEFINITELY conduct physical warfare.
They use nematocysts- their microscopic harpoons. They can shed nematocysts into the water column. They can choose NOT to shed nematocysts as well.
Anemones (different spcies) need not actually touch to harm one another and they can certainly sense the presence of another anemone.
That doesn't necessarily mean they will feel threatened enough to release nematocysts en masse.
A good filtration system might keep the number of shed nematocysts down to a minimum.
This might explain why some people can keep different anemone species together and others cannot.

Good filtration and the specimen feeling secure might play a role in what you're able to keep together in the same aquarium.

IME/IMO anecdotal observation

 

[RossRalliart]

In my experience I have kept Magnifica with Rbta,Malu,Crispa,Lta together with no problem but tried Magnifica and Haddoni and almost lost both of them, Mag was first in the tank doing wonderful as soon as I put the Haddoni ,Mag started to deflate and remained that way until I place her in another tank. To this day she is doing wonderful!

 

[OrionN]

I think I am differ from Gary. Anemone cannot think or feel because they do not have a brain or enough neuro tissue to be as capable to process complex interpretation.
What I think is that some anemones are more similar. Other anemones are not as closely related. Chemical that escape or release may bother one but not the other. Certainly any chemical that an anemone release, it first got to be non-toxic to itself. If another species that is close (similar) enough to the release anemone, it may not bother them.
When they touch, all bets are off. They can sense self/or family and do not fire their nematocysts, or else they can fire away to close contact warfare.

 

[OrionN]

I got two Haddoni, doing wonderful together. I placed a Magnifica in the tank, and the larger Haddoni start to deflated, and the Magnifica, intiially foing great, started to deflated also. Yesterday, one of the Haddoni take a walk and got suck into my Vortech. Fortunately I caught it before more than 1/4 of the tissue got puree. I removed the Magnifica and put the blue Hadonni to a treatment tank. Hope he will be OK. The Magnifica does not look too good either, I hope he will recover also.
Two years ago, I got 2 Magnifica in a 100 g tank with a large Haddoni. Neither did very well, until I remove the Haddoni

 

[jeffm59]

I always like to look at this album when pondering this question

http://s142.beta.photobucket.com/user/shutiny/media/IMG_5260.jpg.html?sort=3&o=2#/user/shutiny/media/IMG_3633.jpg.html?sort=3&o=92&_suid=1359786494706038260880193592006

Clearly someone knows how to keep gigs and haddoni in the same tank. Be sure to look at some of the other pictures in the album.

In our tanks, we have 3 gigs and 3 haddoni all in the same multi tank system, the haddoni all share a tank. Two of the gigs share a tank and the largest gig dominates the entire end of 70 gallon tank. All three tanks are plumbed together though a common sump. We do run carbon and a large skimmer on the system. So far no issues

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

I think I am differ from Gary. Anemone cannot think or feel because they do not have a brain or enough neuro tissue to be as capable to process complex interpretation.

Minh- clearly, anemones have no brain but CAN "feel". Anemones can sense the difference between animal and plant matter and even the difference in other anemone species. It's obvious they can release nematocysts or hold back from releasing them. You know this.

What I think is that some anemones are more similar. Other anemones are not as closely related. Chemical that escape or release may bother one but not the other. Certainly any chemical that an anemone release, it first got to be non-toxic to itself. If another species that is close (similar) enough to the release anemone, it may not bother them.
When they touch, all bets are off. They can sense self/or family and do not fire their nematocysts, or else they can fire away to close contact warfare.

again- clearly we KNOW that some anemones are "more similar" than others. Similar species (such as gigantea, haddoni, tapetum) are more likely to get along. OTOH, Magnifica isn't closely related to "carpets" and might not fare well when sharing an aquarium with one.

Often seen pictures of different species together do little to help matters. Similar and unsimilar species are often tossed together in holding tanks at the retail/hobbyist level and those anemones are busy engaging in a deadly warfare that's invisible to most humans. Whether or not that warfare becomes fatal just might depend on how "thick" we allow the "soup" to get.

 

[stickleback]

Supposing some of these issues are down to them releasing nematocysts into the water column, we either need to remove them faster than they are released or neutralise there potency.

I guess good skimming or carbon can remove them, but does anybody know if its possible to remove them through physical filtration? What size are nematocysts? Are nematocysts small enough to pass through a filter sock?

Would strong UV or ozone kill them?

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

without going into great detail in my post here

without going into great detail in my post here

I do believe mechanical filtration on the order of 10 (ten) micron and great protein skimming constantly removes shed namatocysts.

My personal aquarium features great skimming, a mechanical filter, rapid (SPS like) water volume turnover, constant partial water changes and this might explain (at least in part) why I was able to keep magnifica, haddoni and Macrodactyla in the same 200 gallon aquarium successfully for so long.
(Haddon's and Macrodactyla spawned.)
Currently, I only maintain gigantea and it too has spawned.
And yes I still have some tapetum. The little guys split and the mini maxis spawn.

The fact that my Saddleback Clown A. ploymnus ("slime coated" from living in a haddoni) could not enter my magnifica and the fact that my ocellaris (slime coated in my magnifica) could not enter the haddon's anemone without getting badly stung does not seem to indicate allelopathy but the physical presence of each respective host anemone on the fish.

Not only can anemones "sense" the presence of another species- they can sense the presence of another species on it's fishy host and THAT can induce a quick mass release of nematocysts IME.

 

[velvetelvis]

I recently had a bad experience mixing different morphs of E. quadricolor. I had two "rainbow" morphs that were clones from the same original in a 50G, both thriving. After I introduced another BTA morph, a small "purple rain" clone from another aquarist, I noticed that all three anemones began deflating and inflating repeatedly, several times a day.

The largest of the rainbows moved from the position it had kept for months and began splitting, but was unable to finish the process and began to bleach and gape, to the point that I was worried for its survival. The other rainbow fared better, but was obviously stressed. While all this was going on, the new, smaller BTA also began the cycle of deflation/inflation/deflation, retreated into a tiny crevice in the live rock, and began shrinking.

I finally removed the largest, most stressed rainbow, did a large water change, and placed a large amount of fresh carbon in the sump where water could flow through it. The remaining rainbow began to look much better within a few hours, and within about 36 hours had stopped the inflation/deflation cycle. The purple rain continued to shrink and withdraw, and presumably eventually died (it was in a location where I couldn't have reached it without actually breaking my entire LR structure apart).

I didn't suspect allelopathy or nematocyst warfare or anything like that at first. What did finally make me think that it might have been was: (1) the tank's parameters tested out consistent and normal; (2) the gaping, splitting anemone recovered almost immediately on being put into another system (a 700G frag grow-out tank at a friend's coral farm); and (3) after the water change and carbon replacement, the remaining rainbow BTA made a full recovery and actually grew a bit, while at the same time, the smaller "invader" rapidly declined and died--which I took to mean that the rainbow had won the competition.

 

[82ndengineer]

My blackfoots go back and forth between my largest rbta and the mags all day with no ill effects noticed. This has been going on for at least 6 months if not longer. I have yet to see them go in the crispa but it's only been in tank about 2 weeks. Again no carbon but I have a good skimmer and do weekly 50 gallon water changes.

 

[velvetelvis]

I should add that my tank is relatively small--it's a 50, but when I account for displacement and sump capacity, it's closer to about 45G. I do run carbon and a skimmer, plus an in-sump refugium stocked with chaeto, so I wonder if system size has an effect on potential anemone warfare.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

I wonder if system size has an effect on potential anemone warfare.

I think you know the answer to that!

I never kept BTA's and mags in the same system so I can't comment on that combo but it's pretty obvious to me that different anemone species react differently to one another.

For example: my mag would actively seek out Stichodactyla tapetum to kill them.

My Macrodactyla doreensis and S. haddoni didn't care one bit about nearby tapetum.

 

[jmadison]

Successfully housed 2 btas and a gig in a 90 within close proximity of each other(their choice) with no issues for 9+ months. No migration or anything. Attempted a haddoni (happy/healthy from another one of my systems) prior to the gig and everyone was unhappy. So I did not leave the haddoni.