jynxtrix's Forcibly Propogated Haddoni Anemone

[jynxtrix]

yes, it is in the breeder net at the top of the tank for the time being. I am thinking seriously about putting him back in the tank, but I have a quite a few corals that he could easily destroy now if he up and decided to go back into tumbleweed mode.

I actually tried putting sand in my breeder net too, but it was far too fine, and literally just poured straight through it.

For the time being, the only time it appears upset is during feeding, when the lights first come on, and when I have to swap it into my spare net to clean the other. Other than that it seems okay, so I try to disturb it as little as possible.

 

[BonsaiNut]

Dont take the interwebs too seriously. I've realized after ten years of forums that all it take is an opinion from someone with 10 billion forum posts and that opinion overtakes all common sense in the masses. Because someone couldn't accomplish something with their individual setup does not mean that it is now impossible and noone else should even attempt it.

You haven't been following the discussion, so it is interesting that you feel qualified to pass judgement on those people who have. Regardless of the numbers of people who have tried to do this (and failed - at the cost of their animals' lives), you have science, as well as the opinion of the most experienced anemone scientist in the world, against you. I'm not trying to flame you - but your friend isn't even successful yet and you are already crowing. No one WANTS you to fail... but to do the same thing as many other people, and expect different results...

I hope it works out ok. For your friend's benefit, as well as the benefit of the anemone.

 

[BonsaiNut]

And just for reference:

To prevent taking animals from the wild, some well-intentioned people propose cutting sea anemones in pieces to propagate them artificially. I am astonished how often I receive such proposals! It appears that only (or nearly only) anemones that naturally divide will predictably survive this treatment. Despite a persistent belief otherwise, anemones of most species do not reproduce asexually: only two of the 10 species that are natural hosts to anemonefishes do, and that may be a pretty good estimate of the prevalence of that ability among all anemones - 20% of species.

Perhaps the myth that division is how anemones reproduce is due in part to the feeling that anemones are "primitive" and division is a "primitive" attribute (in fact, anemones have been on earth far longer than humans, so can be argued to be more evolved!), and in part because pests such as *Aiptasia* are many peoples' ideas of a "typical" anemone. In fact, they are so prevalent and common precisely because they have that unusual ability - most of the 1000 or so species of anemones are less conspicuous because they do not occur in such densities at least in part because they lack that ability.

Another possible source of the misconception about anemone division is the practice of fragging corals. Clearly anemones and scleractinian corals are closely related. But that does not mean they can be treated identically. All anemones are solitary (even those that divide separate entirely once they have formed separate bodies, whereas polyps of corals in a colony remain physically attached to one another after they have arisen asexually). So fragging is dividing colonies (groups of polyps) into smaller colonies (fewer polyps per piece). By contrast, cutting an anemone into pieces is analogous to cutting you into two or more pieces; and for anemones of most species, the result would be precisely the same -- we would not have numerous identical yous, we would have no you.

Associated with an ability in some anemones to divide (into two or many pieces, depending on the species) is an ability to heal; obviously healing is necessary for regeneration. And although the reverse is not necessarily the case, it seems that animals that do not normally divide also have poor healing ability. So the prospects are dim for propagating anemones of species that do not naturally divide by cutting them into two or more pieces. One person who wrote to me rather triumphantly with a proposal to reduce collection from nature by cutting anemones in pieces as a means of artificial propagation was so pleased because he had cut in half two anemones of a species that does not reproduce asexually (as I recall, it was a species of *Stichodactyla*), and although both halves of one had died, both of the other had survived. So he started with two and ended with two, each half as large as the originals. I failed to see promise in this approach.

And even for the two species of anemonefish host anemones that seem to divide in nature, differences from place to place make me think there may be more than one species of what we think is a single species of each or there may be differences among individuals. Thus, even an anemone that is thought to be able to propagate asexually (*Entacmaea quadricolor*, the bubble-tip, and *Heteractis magnifica*, the "Ritteri" anemone) may die from being cut up.

Daphne Fautin

Daphne G. Fautin
Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Curator, Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center
Haworth Hall
University of Kansas

 

[Toddrtrex]

....

But, I also tend to subscribe to the, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mantra. So, opinions from anyone else? Would you favor getting the small one in some sort of sand bed (tank sand or pvc tube) or leave it be? Just wondering. Good luck with them.

Cheers
Mike

In the 15+ years of keeping S. haddonis, they have only left the sandbed when something was wrong/off. In one case, up on the rocks to get more light (( I don't count this one, since it was about 20 years ago, under NO florescents, and it struggled the whole time -- want to say it was my first anemone )), and when it was being irritated. Back when I had my mated pair of clarkiis they had this nasty habit of digging up the sand around an S. haddoni. In turn the anemone started to climb up the rocks.

While I wouldn't remove the ones in this thread from the rocks if attached, I would at least try to figure out why it is there -- since that isn't a normal state. Now, if it wasn't attached, I would move it -- either with a full sandbed, or your method.

 

[Chimone]

You haven't been following the discussion, so it is interesting that you feel qualified to pass judgement on those people who have. Regardless of the numbers of people who have tried to do this (and failed - at the cost of their animals' lives), you have science, as well as the opinion of the most experienced anemone scientist in the world, against you. I'm not trying to flame you - but your friend isn't even successful yet and you are already crowing. No one WANTS you to fail... but to do the same thing as many other people, and expect different results...

I hope it works out ok. For your friend's benefit, as well as the benefit of the anemone.

Pretty ignorant statement on your part.

I have been following this discussion, in fact more so than you have. I work with jynx. We talk about this all day so in fact, Im more involved in this than you are. I've been to his house to watch the progress and am very interested in the outcome.

A lot of people are scared to post things they are trying online in fear of the forum nazis flaming away. I was merely reassuring him to keep on the right track and not worry about what someone else may say in the negative. The deed is done..... no going back, and so far his results look promising. What will happen in the future who knows, but he is staying positive and giving it the best care he can.

 

[Winwood]

And here we go!

 

[emdr888]

Hope it works, but i guess we'll have to wait a few years to see if it really heals and flourishes. Surprised if someone else has done this before succesfully and has not yet commented. I'd be way to scared to cut my carpets.

Good luck!

 

[jynxtrix]

You haven't been following the discussion, so it is interesting that you feel qualified to pass judgement on those people who have. Regardless of the numbers of people who have tried to do this (and failed - at the cost of their animals' lives), you have science, as well as the opinion of the most experienced anemone scientist in the world, against you. I'm not trying to flame you - but your friend isn't even successful yet and you are already crowing. No one WANTS you to fail... but to do the same thing as many other people, and expect different results...

I hope it works out ok. For your friend's benefit, as well as the benefit of the anemone.

Chimone is not "crowing" about anything, he's simply stating that individuals (especially in forums it seems), tend to be extremely cynical. I am trying something different, and I am having success with my endeavors, his words were clearly words of encouragement directed at me. which is clearly more than YOU have provided.

Maybe you should look into an individual named Anthony Calfo, who is also quite well known in this hobby for the books he has written on marine invertebrates, let me provide his reply to an individual who posted that EXACT letter.

"Dr Fautin, though highly esteemed (and deservedly so) in her field... has been a sometimes (very) harsh critic of the aquaruim trade for many years. Moreover, Dr. Fautin has not actually tried to farm anemones as best I know. I have personally successfully (as in multiplied numbers of divisions grown out to harvest size) propagated each of the species presently known in the aquarium trade. Moreover... numerous others have as well. This is well documented in the archives of this forum and numerous others. In my travels, I have met numerous people that make their full-time income propagating such organisms. The angle that "[asexual fragmentation] does not happen commonly or naturally in most of these species in nature" is a staggeringly myopic defense. Humans successfully, safely and efficiently culture a plethora of organisms (food, science and otherwise) by developed techniques that do not happen naturally. Surely you are aware of this?

With all due respect, I am not sure why you chose to make this your first post... and without a question, when the very evidence to support the hobby side of it sit in this very forum ("Fav threads" sticky atop this forum... scroll to the post called "discussions" and see the alphabetical entry. Or.... just use the search function)?

May I respectfully suggest that you read any of the easy to find testimonials to the contrary before you post on this topic again?

kindly, Anth-

.

Anthony Calfo"

That was taken from this link if you would care to read the rest of it.

http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic104211-13-1.aspx

Do you remember reading this at the beginning of this thread?

Now, that being said, If you come to look, cool, if you come to post ideas and suggestions, or provide insight, even better, but if all you can do is criticize, please, go start your own thread and complain there. All others, please enjoy.

or how about this?

As mentioned before, if you would like to participate in the discussion please do, I welcome any input. If you came to flame, then please, move on. What's done is done as far as these guys goes, and bad attitudes aren't gonna help me with the recovery in the least.

And I would like to say for the record, that this is exactly what I DON'T want this discussion to turn into is one long bickering session, where if someone searches for this topic, they have to dig through 500 post by pessimists and non believers before they find out whether or not my attempt succeeded or failed. We have ALL heard about the risks. I knew what they were when I started it, if people want to know the risks, they can go search for it there, where you will have hopefully posted information such as your previous post INSTEAD of my thread about what I have tried and what may or may not have worked.

 

[Toddrtrex]

Anthony Calfo -- is the one I mentioned that has claimed success numerous times, with several species (( ones that don't naturally split )), and has yet to show any long term success proof.


And since your friend in this brought up "Nazis" I am going to leave this thread, and suggest to him that he refrains from using that term again.

 

[BonsaiNut]

Pretty ignorant statement on your part.

I have been following this discussion, in fact more so than you have. I work with jynx. We talk about this all day so in fact, Im more involved in this than you are. I've been to his house to watch the progress and am very interested in the outcome.

A lot of people are scared to post things they are trying online in fear of the forum nazis flaming away. I was merely reassuring him to keep on the right track and not worry about what someone else may say in the negative. The deed is done..... no going back, and so far his results look promising. What will happen in the future who knows, but he is staying positive and giving it the best care he can.

I'm not talking about THIS THREAD. I am talking about THIS DISCUSSION. The one that has been going on for well over a year. The one where person after person claims to be able to "frag anemones". They show up, spout a big game, and then disappear the second someone asks for some proof. And this includes Anthony Calfo. And mysteriously, you never see a single "fragged" carpet anemone for sale... anywhere...

Because you have NOT been following this discussion, you did not know what a firestorm you walked into. You view yourself as something unique, while the rest of us see you as one more in a long line of people who mean well, but who have no experience, and then go ahead and chop their anemones in half, and watch as they languish and die.

For what it's worth, the mortality rate on chopping S. haddoni in half does NOT appear to be 100%. It just happens to be much higher than 50% (and I would argue is probably in excess of 95%) based on the shared experiences of people on this forum. But whatever. Chop away. Just stop flaming people who have seen it all before... you are making yourself look foolish.

 

[jynxtrix]

If I delete my account, does it delete this thread?

 

[BonsaiNut]

If I delete my account, does it delete this thread?

Nope, it doesn't. But if you are deleting your account because of me, I will happily leave this thread for all time and let you do your thing. I harbor no ill will toward you (or your anemone). I hope you are successful.

 

[jynxtrix]

Nope, it doesn't. But if you are deleting your account because of me, I will happily leave this thread for all time and let you do your thing. I harbor no ill will toward you (or your anemone). I hope you are successful.

It's not just you, it's the masses. I came to this forum after months of trolling this one, and a number of others, to share my personal experiences, and talk to other like minded individuals. So that I could give back to a community who had helped me the most through my infancy transitioning from a long time freshwater aquarist to a marine aquarist. I don't have to have an account or participate in any way to leech information off this website, I joined to share. I did not come here to bicker and nay say over every little detail and hear about how I'm foolish for the things I've tried, and so on and so forth. If I wanted to simply post pictures and progress, I'd start a blog, or a website, or just put it on my facebook. Which the kind of behavior I'm seeing here is honestly leading me to believe might be the simplest alternative. I appreciate input, but I made my intentions very clear when I started this thread, and I also made it very clear that the ONLY reason I started this particular thread was so that other individuals threads wouldn't be overrun with a topic that I ACCIDENTALLY brought up.
I don't want my anemone to die, But if it does, so be it. I'm going about this as patiently and as methodically as I can and I guarantee that I will learn something from this, that's how experiments work. I come home and check this thread to see if there are questions posted, and instead, I get these boisterous opinion based comments that are of no significant value what so ever to the topic. It's bad when I don't even want to read my own thread because of it. So why would anybody else want to? It makes me regret starting this thread, sharing ANY information, and leads me to wonder if I should have joined a forum at all.

That being said, if this continues, I will simply abandon the thread, any one who wants an update can PM me, but I'm not going to waste my time with people who are more interested in stating THEIR point than reading about the subject. I'm just not that desperate to share.

 

[Seahorse NJRC]

OK, I want to see how the experiment pans out. I hope for the anemones that it turns out well. However, with that being said, it is important to point out that you knew going into this that this was going to be controversial and there would be a good amount of debate. There will be plenty of nay-sayers, but I say keep the thread alive. It will take time to prove everyone wrong. IMO, keeping any anemone alive longer than a year as a partial success. These creatures can live for 100's of years. IMO, I believe that keeping a forcibly propagated anemone alive for 2 years a great starting point.

Another thing I would like to mention is that this is a forum. It is a place for people with varying opinions to be able to exchange their ideas. I would just take the opinions that some people are giving you very lightly. Take it in stride and since you are very confident in your abilities, prove them wrong. Keep this thread updated with progress. If the thread is abandoned, people will naturally think that you failed. Do you want that?

 

[Chimone]

I'm not talking about THIS THREAD. I am talking about THIS DISCUSSION. The one that has been going on for well over a year. The one where person after person claims to be able to "frag anemones". They show up, spout a big game, and then disappear the second someone asks for some proof. And this includes Anthony Calfo. And mysteriously, you never see a single "fragged" carpet anemone for sale... anywhere...

Because you have NOT been following this discussion, you did not know what a firestorm you walked into. You view yourself as something unique, while the rest of us see you as one more in a long line of people who mean well, but who have no experience, and then go ahead and chop their anemones in half, and watch as they languish and die.

For what it's worth, the mortality rate on chopping S. haddoni in half does NOT appear to be 100%. It just happens to be much higher than 50% (and I would argue is probably in excess of 95%) based on the shared experiences of people on this forum. But whatever. Chop away. Just stop flaming people who have seen it all before... you are making yourself look foolish.

Hahaha wow......just wow

Once again ignorance raises its ugly head. Not once did I ever say anything about your stupid conversation over a year. And wow....to keep arguing for a year reallysays something about yourself. All I ever said was for jynx to keep on doing what he was doing and keep his head up, nothing about any previous arguments. I merely told him to ignore individuals such as yourself. Reread what I wrote genius, where did I say anything in regards to your previous threads. I said ignore the naysayers. He is my friend and Im glad he's enjoying this hobby for what is and dont let people such as yourself get him down.

I could care less about your previous arguments as Ive said, and I could care less about you. Jynx, I do apologize for introducing you to this site, there are *******s everywhere it seems......

This one in particular.

 

[syrinx]

I am going to address both sides of this issue- and likely offend everyone in the process! But it is all in good spirit. First off- there is a wealth of knowlege on RC-but also a certain amount is not allowed to be added. There are some subjects that people have a lockstep mentallity about(tangs anyone)- and trying to go against the mass metooos just does not work. And that is fine-99.9% of the topics are not like this so its just a glitch in the process. I have set up many labs, and I have had some of my breeding projects documented in scientific papers-so I know what the standard of proof is. I have had things happen in my tanks or customers tanks- I wont speak of, because I did not properly document them, and don`t care to defend them against knee jerk naysayers. Understand please this is not directed at todd or bonsi-they have developed their opinions in a scientific way and are to be respected. That being said I consider the title of your thread to be a absolute troll move. And the choice of using a butcher knife etc etc. I think you are trying to inflame while acting like a victom. Now from my point of view- I am all for experimentation. So many aquarists kill anemones, someone trying to cut one is not that big a deal for the sake of science. I certainly hope for success- or more likely the survival of the larger one. But the way you are doing it really doesn`t further the cause or argument.

 

[Toddrtrex]

Chimone --- learn to post within the [ua] that you agreed too, or don't post - it is that simple.


Part of the issue I have with this is the way this was done, and the attitude that this thread was started.
Would have hoped that if someone was going to truly attempt this (( still think it is a bad idea, but that isn't the point )), they would at least have some experience with the anemone in question -- 2 months isn't long enough.
Would have given the anemone more time to settle into the tank -- again 2 months isn't long enough.
Would have devised a means to cut it directly in the middle, and not an off center cut.
Would have used something better than a butcher knife.
Perhaps would have tried this with a species that is known to natural split (( E. quadriclor )) first, to get the hang of it.

Those are just off the top of my head.

 

[Chimone]

Chimone --- learn to post within the <a href="http://www.reefcentral.com/index.php/user-agreement">User Agreement</a> that you agreed too, or don't post - it is that simple.

Fair enough, Im done......

 

[BonsaiNut]

It's not just you, it's the masses. I came to this forum after months of trolling this one, and a number of others, to share my personal experiences, and talk to other like minded individuals. So that I could give back to a community who had helped me the most through my infancy transitioning from a long time freshwater aquarist to a marine aquarist. I don't have to have an account or participate in any way to leech information off this website, I joined to share. I did not come here to bicker and nay say over every little detail and hear about how I'm foolish for the things I've tried, and so on and so forth. If I wanted to simply post pictures and progress, I'd start a blog, or a website, or just put it on my facebook. Which the kind of behavior I'm seeing here is honestly leading me to believe might be the simplest alternative. I appreciate input, but I made my intentions very clear when I started this thread, and I also made it very clear that the ONLY reason I started this particular thread was so that other individuals threads wouldn't be overrun with a topic that I ACCIDENTALLY brought up.
I don't want my anemone to die, But if it does, so be it. I'm going about this as patiently and as methodically as I can and I guarantee that I will learn something from this, that's how experiments work. I come home and check this thread to see if there are questions posted, and instead, I get these boisterous opinion based comments that are of no significant value what so ever to the topic. It's bad when I don't even want to read my own thread because of it. So why would anybody else want to? It makes me regret starting this thread, sharing ANY information, and leads me to wonder if I should have joined a forum at all.

Well I hope your anemone doesn't die either. I hope you have success and can share your photos. There have been a couple of documented frags of S. haddoni working out, so I wish you the best.

There was a thread on here not so long ago where people were talking about fragging anemones and suggestions for what we might do to see if we could increase success rates (particularly in regard to S. haddoni). The idea being that everyone was doing more or less the same thing, getting poor results, and no one was trying anything new or different. We spent some time talking about anemone symmetry and siphonoglyphs (the two little grooves on each end of the mouth that enable anemones to "breathe" and maintain their internal water pressure). I seem to recall someone splitting an anemone through the middle of the siphonoglyphs and killing it outright. If you do a search it's probably still around here. You might get some ideas from it - I think there were some interesting things discussed.

Now if you were fragging S. gigantea... There has never been a confirmed case of anyone fragging S. gigantea and having either piece survive. Maybe someone has done it and it is double top-secret

 

[phender]

Hey Jynx,

Hope you hang with us and keep us updated. It would be great if you found the trick to get them over the hump. Here is a link to my thread in 2006 when I cut my Merten's carpet. Maybe it will help, maybe it won't. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=921143

Mine lasted almost a year. (I posted earlier that it lasted 18 months, I'm getting old and sometimes remember things like I wished they had happened) . Your's is starting out very similar to mine. I hope it ends better.

Just so you know, Anthony Calfo is sort of a hot button for a lot of folks on this board. If you want to know more you can pm me privately. There have already been enough posts to give you a glimpse as to why.