My new A. bicinctus

Since feeding the magnifica the natural way doesn't work well due to the bicinctus' habit of viciously stealing the anemones food I used a syringe to inject some Mysis directly into its mouth.
I also fed the haddoni which is far better in protecting its food from thievish anemonefish.

Both, the male and female bicinctus did "dives" into the haddoni. They are both clearly adapting themselves to take on the haddoni as host.

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BTW, that haddoni is still a bit small after I moved it. In its previous tank, it pretty much filled the entire basket.
 
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The eggs hatched Friday night after only 8 days. The eggs of my percula hatch after 11 (pair 2) to 12 days (pair 1).

AC had another magnifica but unfortunately it was also bleached to the bone...
 
They laid eggs again Monday evening.
The female is now sleeping in the haddoni. And while the male goes visiting the haddoni frequently he mostly stays with the magnifica so far.

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So far no luck with "infecting" the magnifica with Zooxanthellae.
A.C. had another magnifica last week but it was just as bleached and potentially sick.

The female now spends considerable time in the haddoni and sleeps in it at night. The male visits the haddoni frequently as well but stays with the magnifica, likely because the nest is there.

With S. haddoni confirmed as a natural host in the wild, bicinctus is accepting every suitable host anemone that is found in their distribution range - with the sole exception of Cryptodendrum adhaesivum, which is not really a common host anemone.
I would think that this due to the fact that there is no competition with other anemonefish species in their distribution range, which likely is one of the prime reasons why most species "specialize" in only a few hosts.

So the list of natural hosts for A. bicinctus matches the list of common host anemones found in the red Sea:

Entacmaea quadricolor (prefered host?)
Heteractis aurora
Heteractis crispa
Heteractis magnifica
Stichodactyla gigantea
Stichodactyla haddoni
Stichodactyla mertensi

Not found in the Red Sea are:
Heteractis malu
Macrodactyla doreensis

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The way these guys lay their eggs - in a nice and tight patch - tells me that they have done it quite a few times before, and together. By now I'm certain that these two had been a pair in the wild and only got separated at the wholesaler or store.
 
Since I couldn't find a mag that isn't bleached locally I ordered the African H. magnifica DD had listed for a couple of days. Hopefully that will work as donor.

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Today I found out that the little bicinctus had jumped out. It must have happened during the time when I had the magnifica(s) removed for treatment... time to invest in screens :debi:
 
ThRoewer said:
Today I found out that the little bicinctus had jumped out. It must have happened during the time when I had the magnifica(s) removed for treatment... time to invest in screens :debi:
Click to expand...

Oh, no. What a bummer.
I've lost two clowns to jumping. One jumped due to a big crab that came in as a hitchhiker on a piece of live rock. It must have gotten spooked by the crab.
The second clown I lost to jumping was not accepted by a larger clown. There was chasing but no real damage...until the smaller clown decided it was time to jump.
 
The milii like to play cat and mouse a lot so, to be on the safe side, I covered their tank. I'm not so much concerned about the percula since they never leave their anemones. Same goes for the bicinctus pair, they rather divide down when startled.

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Well, it lasted quite some time for a bleached anemone but the fact that it was not eating finally got to it. Last night the magnifica started to decompose and I had to throw it out.
But the magnifica I got from DD reacted well to the treatment and is doing fine. Though I might need to separate it from the bicinctus as the female really likes to steal the anemone's food.

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Just found a huge magnifica from the Maldives at a local store... it was at least 18" at the store, though spread out flat on the back pane. Hopefully it will fit the tank...
Pictures come as soon as it's in the tank.

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Pictures of it right after putting it into the tank:
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CoralsAddiction said:
Looks nice. More Haddoni for Milli :)
Click to expand...
I got it from a new store in San Jose. They had loads of Maldives and a good number of Australian fish, even a few A. milii and one A. bicolor aside from a bunch of percula (presumably GBR, but could also be PNG).

I think I will leave the purple haddoni with the bicinctus for now.
Though my ocellaris pair is quite excited about the DD magnifica that had to move to make room for this monster...

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The bicinctus female with the new magnifica:

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And my Philippine ocellaris were more than happy to take the DD magnifica as hand-me-down:

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For some reason, the large magnifica doesn't like its spot despite being dead center under the Kessil and on pretty much the highest spot in the tank. It also gets plenty of flow. Yet I found it already twice on the move... I may have to relocate it (and the bicinctus with it) to my 100-gallon tank and move the purple gigantea (which seems to be unhappy there) and my percula pair #1 into the 40B... well at least then the 100-gallon tank would be a good deal closer to a Red Sea biotope.
 
ThRoewer said:
For some reason, the large magnifica doesn't like its spot despite being dead center under the Kessil and on pretty much the highest spot in the tank. It also gets plenty of flow. Yet I found it already twice on the move...
Click to expand...

Mine moved a little bit a week or two ago after I changed some of the light settings and flow. It went from one side of the flat rock it's on to another. After some minor tweaking it stopped moving. The key was having it on its own island with no room for lateral movement. Some mags go suicidal, detach completely from rock structures and go floating.
In your case, I would not mess at all with an established gigantea (other than the fact you mentioned it doesn't seem happy where it's at)
 
CoralsAddiction said:
Mine moved a little bit a week or two ago after I changed some of the light settings and flow. It went from one side of the flat rock it's on to another. After some minor tweaking it stopped moving. The key was having it on its own island with no room for lateral movement. Some mags go suicidal, detach completely from rock structures and go floating.
In your case, I would not mess at all with an established gigantea (other than the fact you mentioned it doesn't seem happy where it's at)
Click to expand...

That gigantea went on a walk up the rockwork after being quite unhappy in its original spot for a while. It either didn't like the excessive flow, or sitting so low, or the water being too low on nutrients, or something else. I think it really needs its own tank in my new anemone system. The other purple gig I have in there is by now the best looking of them all.
 
These guys produce nests like clockwork - every 11 to 13 days, no matter what. Even moving their tank didn't impact their schedule. Last Friday they spawned the 13th time since I have them. All nests are large and neat with little to no bad eggs. If I would have raised them all I would be drowning in bicinctus by now... I think this pair alone could easily satisfy the demand for bicinctus in the US and beyond...
 
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