ID needed on petco nem

Swayze27

New member
So the picture sucks but I'm going to try and explain it. I was in petco and they had this anemone. Foot was buried in sand in a rockless tank. At first I was thinking long tentacle anemone but the more I looked at it the less I think it is a LTA. The foot is orange but its a uniquely speckled orange, not solid orange like LTA but does have the white dotted veracue. I dug out a spot at base of rock and placed it there Friday evening, it immediately attached to bottom of glass. Since then it appears the foot is stretched underneath the rock but not on glass. It is also inching its way around the base of the rock to a better spot I guess. Does H.crispa or Malu have the orange speckled foot? Any ideas on what this guy is based on pic and description?

sebae anemone.jpg
 
It does appear to have blue or purple tips, this iPhone gets drowned out from tank lighting. I didn't know if the h. crispa or h. malu were known to have orange patterned coloration on foot.
 
Here is a section of the foot where he is reattaching to the bottom. You can see the spotted orange pattern I was talking about. Not sure what anemone this is a sign of, any ideas?

anemone spotted foot.jpg
 
So anemone has moved pretty much completely down into the sandbed and foot is secured to the bottom glass. Is this an indication of h. malu or still too early to tell?
 
This one is hard for me. I might need to see it in person to give a better guess. But it looks pretty healthy to me.


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If priced right I might grab it if I have an empty tank. I just can't resist a healthy looking nem in Petco tank lol

But they do label nems wrong sometimes. My lta was sold to me as a condi. Now it's the super giant in my 20 gallon.


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Yeah, they told me it was a mini carpet I said no definitely not a carpet. I paid $12 for it. I'm pretty sure LTA or Malu
 
The orange mottling on the base is pretty common for H. malu. Tentacle tips are either purple or rarely green.
LTAs don't have either.

100% H. malu.
 
There is also appears to be a variation of tentacle lengths, or at least different rows or bands of tentacles. I wish I could get a half way decent pic but i can't.
 
Tentacles have remained longer and thinner, no short stubby appearance like I've seen on a lot of malu so I have no clue.
 
The orange mottling on the base is pretty common for H. malu. Tentacle tips are either purple or rarely green.
LTAs don't have either.

100% H. malu.

I have never seen an H. Malu with an orange base. I hate to disagree with you Phender, but I kindly have too. I have owned several H. Malu's and they all had a white foot that was rather small.
 
I have never seen an H. Malu with an orange base. I hate to disagree with you Phender, but I kindly have too. I have owned several H. Malu's and they all had a white foot that was rather small.

No offense taken, but just because you haven't seen one doesn't mean they don't exist. I have seen wholesalers tanks full of malus with orange splotches on their base. It is also not uncommon for them (not dyed) to have entirely yellow bases.

And although the Fautin/Allen book on anemones and clownfish is not 100% perfect, it does list malus as sometimes having dark yellow or orange blotches on the foot.
 
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