how to make rbta tentacles bubble
- Thread starter d0ughb0y
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phender
Active member
I have a completely different experience with light.
I have been keeping anemones for over 30 years. During most of that time most people used a large number of normal output fluorescent bulbs over their tanks. It wasn't until I started seeing BTAs under metal halides that I ever saw one without bubble tips. All of my BTAs always had bubble tips under normal fluorescents. It wasn't until I moved up to CP, metal halides and T5s that they started losing their bubble tips.
In my experience increasing light has been counter productive in attempting to get BTAs to bubble.
This whole thing has been discussed for many years on this board and for every factor someone thinks has caused their BTA to bubble, several people have had the opposite experience.
Remember experimentation can not prove a hypothesis correct, it can only prove it wrong. No matter how many times you show that more lighting causes bubbles, it only takes one person to show it doesn't to disprove your hypothesis.
I have a feeling that it my have to do with the light's spectrum rather than intensity. I am not talking about 10k vs. 14k. I am talking about the amount of red, yellow, orange, etc., that the bulbs produce.
Someday I will have to go back to the shop lights to see if I can get the bubbles to return.
I have been keeping anemones for over 30 years. During most of that time most people used a large number of normal output fluorescent bulbs over their tanks. It wasn't until I started seeing BTAs under metal halides that I ever saw one without bubble tips. All of my BTAs always had bubble tips under normal fluorescents. It wasn't until I moved up to CP, metal halides and T5s that they started losing their bubble tips.
In my experience increasing light has been counter productive in attempting to get BTAs to bubble.
This whole thing has been discussed for many years on this board and for every factor someone thinks has caused their BTA to bubble, several people have had the opposite experience.
Remember experimentation can not prove a hypothesis correct, it can only prove it wrong. No matter how many times you show that more lighting causes bubbles, it only takes one person to show it doesn't to disprove your hypothesis.
I have a feeling that it my have to do with the light's spectrum rather than intensity. I am not talking about 10k vs. 14k. I am talking about the amount of red, yellow, orange, etc., that the bulbs produce.
Someday I will have to go back to the shop lights to see if I can get the bubbles to return.
BonsaiNut
Premium Member
Personally I don't care whether an anemone's tentacles bubble or not. I just care that an anemone is healthy. Since bubbling does not appear to be in any way related to anemone health, I am happy that you like your anemone's "new look".
You mistake my point as being ego-based, or jealousy, or whatever. I am not arguing that your anemones tentacles have bubbled. I'm just arguing that you have not the slightest clue why
If you are happy, great! I am happy for you. Just don't post stuff like "how to make rbta tentacles bubble" when you don't know how or why, that's all
intermision
New member
Mine has bubbles starting when the light comes on, but when I feed it they go away. Maybe there is no rhyme or reason to it.
I have 4 bubbles. One that is purple w/green tips (half bubbled, half not),
one rose bubble (no bubbles, all stretched out),
one lime green with darker green tips (super bubbled, looks like fish eggs).
and one pink with green tips (fluctuates between bubbled and not)
All are under 400w 20k MH bulbs. So I don't think it has anything to do with lighting. All of them are hosted, so I don't think that is it either, and lastly all are overfed (trying to get them to split) so I'm not sure it's a food thing either.
Finally read all the way through the thread. This is an interesting one. I don't really think that ANYONE has a right or wrong answer here.
I really just think it is the luck of the draw unfortunately. I don't care if they bubble or not as long as my clowns keep poking in and out of them. That's why I got them. It fascinates me to watch them interact, and that is what I think it's all about.
I really just think it is the luck of the draw unfortunately. I don't care if they bubble or not as long as my clowns keep poking in and out of them. That's why I got them. It fascinates me to watch them interact, and that is what I think it's all about.
jackiechandc
Canadian Reefer
From my past experience, the clown fish hosting theory is valid. I had a RBTA and a couple of clowns in my old 120G. For about a year, the clowns completely ignored the RBTA and the RBTA has the nicest bubbles (only feed it occasionally). One day the clowns decided to host in the anemone and within a few weeks, the bubbles were gone
Didn't change anything else, except for the clowns decide to take an interest in the RBTA.
Wei
Didn't change anything else, except for the clowns decide to take an interest in the RBTA.Wei
WDLV
Skunk Hybrid Freak
There are many theories. Mine has to do with lighting and flow.
Higher light and lower flow = Bubbles
Lower light and higher flow = elongated tentacles
This is based on observation and the theory that in lagoonal areas where there is more light less flow and more slow moving plankton there is less need for maximizing predatory effort and more effort on maximizing sunlight. Most of the time the bubbled anemones are lighter in color too which I think backs up the idea that they're trying to maximize sunlight reaching their zooxanthellae.
On the other side, I think anemones found on the reef slope tend to be deeper and rely on predatory feeding more. So, they reach out to try to capture more of the faster moving more sparse plankton.
Higher light and lower flow = Bubbles
Lower light and higher flow = elongated tentacles
This is based on observation and the theory that in lagoonal areas where there is more light less flow and more slow moving plankton there is less need for maximizing predatory effort and more effort on maximizing sunlight. Most of the time the bubbled anemones are lighter in color too which I think backs up the idea that they're trying to maximize sunlight reaching their zooxanthellae.
On the other side, I think anemones found on the reef slope tend to be deeper and rely on predatory feeding more. So, they reach out to try to capture more of the faster moving more sparse plankton.
I have three BTAs in one tank. Flow is provided by a Mag7 for return and a Vortech MP40w ES.
Of the three, 1.5 of the nems have bubble tips.
My RBTA has bubbles, part of my newest BTA that has green tips and the rest is purple is half and half right now. Just got it this past saturday.
Finally my last BTA is Green tentacles with a purple foot has no bubble tips, currently. we'll see if anything changes.
I like this theory and it fits my observations as well. I recently noticed this when breaking down my old tank to transfer to a new one. I pulled a bunch of LR out of the tank and moved everything around. My anemone appeared confused for several days moving back and forth between two sides of a single piece of LR. Interestingly enough because of the position of the rock each side shows widely different lighting and flow characteristics. The RBTA only had to move a few inches to experience either:
1. The RBTAs near original spot, high up in the tank with PARs pushing 700-800 but in a rear corner with lower flow. The Vortechs are pushed close to the front of the tank and this rear corner stays fairly calm. The RBTA would always show nice tight bubbles.
2. On the same rock as #1 but a lower spot in the tank under a ledge with PARs around 200-300 but near the front of the tank with strong currents from the Vortechs. The RBTA would always stretch out and elongate its tentacles.
The RBTA switch back and forth for several days between these two spots, waking up in the morning and spending all day at one or the other. My observations were the same each and every time. FWIW
.
Good luck developing hypotheses and testing them
We may get to find out next weekend!:rollface:
Hello to everyone!
I visited this thread a while ago. I had the same question in mind and wanted to test different options to see what makes anemone bubble. I think I have proved to my self what really is needed to these creatures to show all of their beauty.
I purchased Red bubble anemone 6 month ago. It was so cute with red/green bubbles. Then slowly it started to loose its bubbles and became spaghetti like, brownish strange stuff.
I fed it 1-2 a week, clowns are also hosting it. Flow was low and only thing I decided to look in to is the light. I also tried not to feed it at all.
My old light was Fluval M36 ( nice but not so nice after all.... let me explain)
I decided to upgrade my lights to Radion Gen3 (which went back to the supplier 2 days after.....reason: well too expensive for just a spot in the middle of the tank and I didn't want to purchase 2 of them for my 90cm fish tank, too complicated and noisy too)
One thing I noticed was that the anemone did start to react while I was setting the radion up)
Then I had to use my Fluval light again (result: anemone went back to spaghetti creature again)
I also tried T5's once (my mate gave to me for a week) It didn't make much difference either, heated up very fast dow)
One month later I had a good tip of a Zoas grower for a light Evergrow IT2080 ProReef V2! It was half of the price of one Radion so I had to try it!
I can truly say, what a difference!!!! WOW, the color!!! Anemone bubbled up in an hour and looks amazing!
Testing all and everything I could think of, I can say that it's definitely the light!
Flow is something the creature will control by it self, if it won't like the spot....it will move. Mine never moved and had foods of all kinds and different times and quantities (all of this made no difference)
Water parameters by the way are not always ideal as well))) But it only proves that the main requirement is proper light with UV and all the blues!
Good luck I hope my tip will help you!
:bounce3:
This is interesting.. Light being the reason they bubble. Let me give you my background.
I've been in the hobby for about 10 years. I have had a 250g for most of that time. I have had the same Rose/watermelon Bubble tip for about 7 years. The biggest it ever got for me was about 16" under 250w MH... It split many times. Some of the splits I kept. Some of them, I traded sold whatever, but I still have the original and 2 of it's splits. One is about 12" the other about 10" and the last about 4"...
The coloring of those anemones used to be a faded orange with green and HUGE thumb size bubbles on the larger 2 and kinda half bubble half stringy on the small.. I will try to find a pic of the anemones "then"...
I moved to south Florida, so I decided to try doing and "outdoor" tank. Direct SUNLIGHT, Florida sunlight, for 6 hours a day. The bubbles went away on completely on the 2 large anemones. And the color....The color is the most healthy looking bubble gum pink I've ever seen on them. They are definitely happy. The open to HUGE during the sun hours and shrink up during the off times (which I light with an AI 26) till bed time. The 3rd smaller anemone has turned the brightest Orange/Green/speckled COMPLETELY BUBBLED...
So if you can make sense of any of that and say that they'd be better with different lighting, let me know.
I've been in the hobby for about 10 years. I have had a 250g for most of that time. I have had the same Rose/watermelon Bubble tip for about 7 years. The biggest it ever got for me was about 16" under 250w MH... It split many times. Some of the splits I kept. Some of them, I traded sold whatever, but I still have the original and 2 of it's splits. One is about 12" the other about 10" and the last about 4"...
The coloring of those anemones used to be a faded orange with green and HUGE thumb size bubbles on the larger 2 and kinda half bubble half stringy on the small.. I will try to find a pic of the anemones "then"...
I moved to south Florida, so I decided to try doing and "outdoor" tank. Direct SUNLIGHT, Florida sunlight, for 6 hours a day. The bubbles went away on completely on the 2 large anemones. And the color....The color is the most healthy looking bubble gum pink I've ever seen on them. They are definitely happy. The open to HUGE during the sun hours and shrink up during the off times (which I light with an AI 26) till bed time. The 3rd smaller anemone has turned the brightest Orange/Green/speckled COMPLETELY BUBBLED...
So if you can make sense of any of that and say that they'd be better with different lighting, let me know.
cabinetman123
Member
I know this is an old thread but I think I stumbled on how to get stringy ones to bubble up. Mine have always been long and stringy. I started with one a few years ago and it has split a bunch of time and I've never really seen any bubble up. Right now I have 6 of them in my 350. 2 of them were in slots I wanted them to move from so I literally started poking at them with my reef tongs to try to **** them off enough to get them to move. And I mean poke at them. I jabbed at them till I couldn't get them anymore cause they were all retracted into there rock. Well to my delight the 2 I poked at are all bubbled up now. First time ever that they've been bubbled. That's what did it for me. Kinda like an earlier post that said they only bubble when stressed. Do you guys with bubbled up nems have lots of hermits? Do you guys with stringy ones have hardly any hermits? I got a theory is why I ask. I'll do a vid to show my 6 soon. Lights are out now
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