I think i made a big mistake - tube anemone question

[JayJ78]

So I made a noob mistake, and didn't research enough before making a purchase. I was looking for anemone's for my sexy shrimp to live on. I went to my LFS and they had these really cool looking nems that had tons of fine tentacles were pretty small and looked really cool. when I asked what kind they were, the sales person told me they were a type of tube worm. I thought "Awesome, tube worms are peaceful and will give my sexy shrimp something to host o"n. I bought both of them and a RBTA. (It was a good sale day).

I forgot to ask at the shop about the flow they wanted, so i started to research online. Well they are tube anemones, but not the pretty colored ones with the hard tube. These are about the same size, but have a very fragile soft tube and keep burried in the sand. I started to freak out, thinking that they would eat everything in my tank overnight.The store was closed by the time i figured this out.

So I called this morning, and the sales person i talked to this time verified that they were tube anemones, I told him my tank specs
fish: 1 firefish, 1 rainforii goby, 1 swiss guard basslet, 5 sexy shrimp, 3 zoas, one acan in a 30 gal biocube HQI. He said that they wouldn't harm the fish and these are more peaceful.
Is that a line of bull? Can anyone chime in with any experience, I really don't want to loose any of my fish or shrimp. I can take them back, but they look really happy and I like the look they add to my tank. I'm at work now and will post a pic of them when I get home.
Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Irishdolphin]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2502447&highlight=tube+anemone

This thread should help

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Your answer is no, you don't want them if you have fish.

 

[cincyjim]

I have one and it has never bothered anything. My crabs crawl on it and my fish swim with no issues whatsoever. Matter of fact my pistol shrimp lives under the rock sitting next to it with no issues. IMO they are peaceful to a certain degree. I do feed mine a small cut of raw shrimp twice a week (Wednesday and Sunday). Can you post a picture of what you have?

 

[garygb]

Tube anemones are generally no threat to fish.

 

[albano]

I have had tube anemones catch and eat fish...no question about it !

 

[JayJ78]

thank you for all the replies. I really appreciate all the opinions. Here is a picture of Ethel (as my spouce has named them Fred and Ethel) Fred looks exactly the same. When I purchased them, there was no hard tube on them and they both have been busy making a tube. Thanks again for all the help. I'll update when I decide if I should keep them or not.
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=56CCEF7D4B0DA7D4%214333

 

[cincyjim]

They don't have hard tube that I'm aware of. Mine is probably full grown and has a soft tube. It's tentacles are really long and looks cool flowing with the current.

 

[hotelbravo]

Tube anemones are generally no threat to fish.

their sting is much stronger than your average anemone and lots of people report their tube anemones eating fish.

 

[Lmax8rn]

Hotelbravo, sorry, but that is inaccurate. There is an article on advanced aquarist that studies and reports exactly the opposite. I had a huge one, over 14" span. It was beautiful and glowed a bright orange. It got too big for my tank so I sold it to a friend. It NEVER ate a single fish. I have a lot of small fish too. Safe for your reef IMO, but it will sting corals that it comes into contact with.

 

[ThRoewer]

Hotelbravo, sorry, but that is inaccurate. There is an article on advanced aquarist that studies and reports exactly the opposite. I had a huge one, over 14" span. It was beautiful and glowed a bright orange. It got too big for my tank so I sold it to a friend. It NEVER ate a single fish. I have a lot of small fish too. Safe for your reef IMO, but it will sting corals that it comes into contact with.

One I had in the 80s killed a ocellaris. Now, this was a new clown who literally took a nosedive into it - he must have thought it was a host anemone. The tube anemone grabbed him and he was dead before I could pull him out only seconds later.
So they clearly can and will kill fish that get tangled up in their tentacles, even if fish are not their regular food.
The reason why most fish get away is that they usually only get hit by the tentacle tips and in general can easily turn around and get away.
Tough a fish who accidently takes a nosedive into the center of a tube anemone is with high probability going to be killed.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Hotelbravo, sorry, but that is inaccurate. There is an article on advanced aquarist that studies and reports exactly the opposite. I had a huge one, over 14" span. It was beautiful and glowed a bright orange. It got too big for my tank so I sold it to a friend. It NEVER ate a single fish. I have a lot of small fish too. Safe for your reef IMO, but it will sting corals that it comes into contact with.

So you're saying all of the people that report having fish eaten by them are full of crap?

 

[hotelbravo]

Hotelbravo, sorry, but that is inaccurate. There is an article on advanced aquarist that studies and reports exactly the opposite. I had a huge one, over 14" span. It was beautiful and glowed a bright orange. It got too big for my tank so I sold it to a friend. It NEVER ate a single fish. I have a lot of small fish too. Safe for your reef IMO, but it will sting corals that it comes into contact with.

ive had two who have ate 1 clown, two firefish, a royal grama, and surprisingly a pepperminy shrimp. in addition to first hand experience i spend my off time from work volunteering at my lfs where we sell tube anemones and ive had many customers come in saying that their tube anemone ate their fish. so yea maybe you got lucky with one but what i stated was not inaccurate it is a very real thing.

 

[BlueFyre]

I had 3 tube anemones in my 65 for 2 years with no issue. I never lost a single fish or invert to mine and they got pretty big. The fish knew to stay away from it. I say a couple new fish brush against them accidentally and I had a shrimp that liked to mess with them, but the sting never killed them. The anemones ate mysis shrimp and nothing larger, Every time I tried to feed them something bigger they would spit it out. I tried krill, silversides, squid and they would always spit them out. They loved pellets.

Lots of people keep them with fish with no issue. I had all small fish too and they did just fine.

I found them to be a beautiful addition that are really easy to care for.

 

[jpa0741]

Looks like they are hit or miss like everything in this hobby. I also had a couple in my last tank with no issues.

 

[moulton712]

I have one of the bright tube anemones. My shrimp bug it way more than it bugs them. I put the tube in a low flow area under a rock cave.

 

[ThRoewer]

Tube anemones simply don't belong in a reef tank. A reef is not where you find them. They live on sandy grounds and usually at greater depth.
The high light and high flow you need for a reef tank is just not what they like.

They do best in a special tank with low light, deep sand bed and low, laminar flow. Ideal fish are those you find on sandy grounds as well.

 

[cincyjim]

I know that's what they say and for the most part I agree with you. Mine however is in full light, stays out all day long, and sits in medium flow (2 Tunze 6095s with intermittent flow setup) and it doesn't seem to mind at all. It also does not withdraw into its tube when I feed it the cut shrimp. Maybe I got a very docile one and since it is well fed maybe that is why it hasn't been threat in my tank. I'm glad I got it and I love to watch the tentacles sway with the flow. I'd like to think we all do as much research as we can before we buy an animal and then calculate our risk of having the animal in our tank.
Jim

 

[Lmax8rn]

I was referring to your statement about a tube anemone having a stronger sting than another commonly purchased clown-hosting anemone. No, I don't think anyone is full of crap dkuhlman! Carpet anemones, for example, have a much more potent sting than a tube anemone. Just saying.

 

[ThRoewer]

It's not that they don't like light, but that they look so much more stunning under low actinic light.