My new merten's?

[illcssd]

I went on a lfs quest today, lasted about 5 hrs....Found nothing interesting till i stopped by the last lfs on my way home. And here it was, what i believe to be mertensii anemone, for 45$. So, after seeing this, i placed it on hold and went home to make room. What do you guys think, i took these pictures in a hurry, with my phone. Is it merten's?

 

[saltycreefer]

Nice color!

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

Yaeh. Mertens.

 

[Ron Popeil]

well well well austin. ill be calling them tomorrow and requesting a second. good find!

 

[delphinus]

Neat.

 

[bluerug]

Could someone please tell whats the difference between Hadoni, Merten's, and Gigantea please? As far as care level and needs and what not, by the way i love the way your anemone looks.

 

[55semireef]

I know Haddoni is the most forgiving out of the three and the Gigantea is by far the most demanding. I don't know anything about Mertens so I can let someone that has one answer that.

 

[bluerug]

Sounds good.

 

[illcssd]

Mertensii anemone's are from what i hear the easiest to care for, even easier than haddoni possibly. Gigantea are extremely difficult, require high light, high random flow, and finding a healthy specimen. Which proves to be the most difficult of the three. If my understanding is correct mertensii are only rare because they are rarely collected, for what i believe is because they are usually brownish of color. Maybe thats why that collected this one?

 

[bluerug]

Thank you! And good luck with the one you have, you should have no worries though.

 

[Ron Popeil]

haddoni carpets come in a variety of colors and patterns. short stubby tenticles. uniform in length. as far as difficulty, fairly moderate to easy to maintain anemones. likes deep sand and moderate to high flow.
mertens carpets have distinct orange dots under their oral disc. in more mature specimens, the tenticles around the mouth are significantly longer than the rest of them. if i remember correctly, prefers a rocky substrate, or even among rock. doesnt require intense lighting, but the stronger the better.
gigantae carpets also come with a few colors, mainly purple, green or brown. this species has the longest of the tenticles, with a distinct shaggy appearance. typically purple verrucae under the oral disc. likes rocky rubble for a substrate, demands high flow and high light. the most sensitive carpet species.

thats to the best of my knowledge of the three.

EDIT: austin...you beat me.

 

[illcssd]

You have information on haddoni that i neglected to include, still a good post.

 

[phender]

Looks like a merten's to me. Good luck with it. For whatever reason they usually come in in pretty good shape.
My guess to why they aren't collected very often is that it may be difficult to find any that are small enough.

That is a pretty liberal definition of purple though.

 

[illcssd]

lol, yes, magnenta maybe? it looks more purple in the store... I took this with my camera phone so the color balance is completely off.
Hopefully it does well, i sure hope so at least.

 

[phender]

Looks brown with light brown tips to me.

When you get it home get some good pics. The color is secondary. The thing I like about these carpets is way the clownfish relate to them. It is almost like the clowns sort of body surf through the tentacles. It is very cool.

How big is this specimen?

 

[illcssd]

8 to 10 inches.

 

[j2me5ku]

wow $45 for a 8-10 inch...are they really that cheap? i thought they would go for at least a $100?

 

[catastrofe]

Very nice mertens. I've been on a waiting list at an LFS for over 8 months with no luck.

 

[phender]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8813330#post8813330 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by j2me5ku
wow $45 for a 8-10 inch...are they really that cheap? i thought they would go for at least a $100?

Of the two I bought, the wholesale price in the 16" one was $24. The 6" one was $12, so $45 retail is about right. The problem is going to be when some online store gets one in that knows that there are some people who want them, they will jack the price up to over $100 and once that happens we are screwed.

FWIW: the wholesale prices on the green and blue gigantea is between $25 and $40. Unfortunately the online guys have found that they can get $150 - $200 for them and it filters down to the LFSs. Then some of the wholesalers figure out what the LFSs are getting for them and their prices go up too.

 

[illcssd]

Its here!!!

Its here!!!

So, i got it for an even better price then i posted, perk's of being in the local reef club. So as promised the pictures: taken roughly an hour after introduction....