mixing anemones??

[lovetoreef]

What is the general consensus on mixing anemone species in an aquarium?? I am planning a 24x24x18 anemone dominant tank, and, i would like to go with one nice carpet anemone and several rbta's ... probably go with a beautiful gsm pair of clowns as the only fish ... thoughts??

I plan on running carbon heavily - thanks.

 

[Toddrtrex]

I am not a fan of it.

What type of carpet ? haddoni or Gig?

In the past (( and right now while I am waiting to sell it )) I have mixed LTAs and Haddonis, and each time they would both start to move --- even with running carbon. The day one was moved to another tank they would settle down.

I have also done BTAs and Haddonis, while the moving around wasn't as bad as above, it still did happen. Once I sold off all my BTAs the Haddoni looked so much better -- with no other changes to the tank.

If you are thinking about a Gig, that really wouldn't work (( IMO )) since they prefer to be on the rocks, which is the same area as a BTA.

As for a Haddoni, they get huge, even with them being on/in the sand at the sand/rock interface, their oral disc will still most likely be up against the rocks and could come into contact with any BTAs in a smaller tank.

You can see in this picture how high up against the rocks my haddoni gets. And this was shortly after a water change, and it had actually closed up a bit.

 

[lovetoreef]

todd -

thanks for the reply - I was really leaning towards a haddoni as I had one of those in the past and I absolutely loved it ... can you do two haddonis in one tank as you did there or is that asking for trouble in the long run??

also, how much more difficult are the blue/red haddonis to keep vs. the traditional green?? thanks.

 

[Toddrtrex]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15609596#post15609596 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by lovetoreef
todd -

thanks for the reply - I was really leaning towards a haddoni as I had one of those in the past and I absolutely loved it ... can you do two haddonis in one tank as you did there or is that asking for trouble in the long run??

also, how much more difficult are the blue/red haddonis to keep vs. the traditional green?? thanks.

Yea, two are fine in the same tank --- assuming that you have the room and the water parameters stay in check.

Assuming that they come in healthy I haven't notice any difference in the care of different color morphs. Again the key is starting out with a healthy one. Heck, my blue one seems to be tough as nails. A couple of years ago I was moving it to another tank. I managed to poke a hole in the oral disc with my finger in the process. And it looked like death. If I had been going out of town for the weekend I would have pulled it. But, as luck would have it I was around that weekend and was able to keep an eye on it. It took about 4 weeks, but it made a full recovery.

 

[lovetoreef]

that is awesome news ... I do plan on keeping the water parameters in check for certain - really, this will be a tank dedicated to the 2 carpets and softies ...

on that note, can you tell me a little more about the "gig" variety of anemones?? It would be nice to have the haddonis across the bottom and one or two gig on the top - thoughts??

also, have you had any luck purchasing the carpets online?? thanks.

 

[Toddrtrex]

Gigs (( Stichodactyla gigantea )) are harder to keep (( and find a healthy one, poor shippers )) compared to Haddonis. They tend to prefer to be on the rocks. Besides any chemical warfare I think there would be flow issues with trying to keep one with a Haddoni. Gigs are fans of flow, whereas haddonis aren't. So keeping both happy would be a challenge.

I would say that I am about 50/50 with getting Haddonis online. It seems more recently they have become more difficult to ship. Though the purple rimmed one above was ordered online. Granted I have only had it for 3 weeks now, it has looked/acted great since the day I got it. But, I have others that would die after the first weeks --- and shared a tank with a healthy one, so I highly doubt the water was an issue.

If you are going to order online I would only buy from a place that has "what you see is what you get" -- so you can at least (( hopefully )) see if the mouth is tightly closed. I haven't lost any that I bought from an LFS, though I did pass over some that I didn't like the looks of.

 

[lovetoreef]

okay - thanks - that helps quite a bit ... i will plan on ordering them through my lfs ... thanks for the information - i will post pictures once there is something to show