new carpet

[cjcmcheek]

i have been looking for a carpet anemone for a while now. there is usually some to choose from at varoius LFS in my area. it too me over a year to find one that i liked. this is a pic of the one i picked up. i have a few questions about care, and its habits. as of now my clowns aren't hosting it. if you can see in the picture i have a couple nems in a conch shell that a male and female are hosting. im planning on removing the bubble tips, and leaving the 2 clowns to host the carpet. right now the clowns look scared to even get close to it. any comments suggestions about this?

the carpet is shrinking up pretty small after the lights turn off. is this normal behavior? also i have been feeding it small silversides; it seems to like these and eats them right away. what and how often should i be feeding it, because i dont want to over feed and it seems hungry.

also i have MH lighting, how long should i have these lights on for the carpet?

 

[bradleym]

Looks to be a Gigantea, so as much light as it can stand I am told. It is common for anemones to close up at night so I wouldn't worry about that. Giganteas also like a good amount of flow from what I have read. Feeding every other day is fine, but not really required to keep a carpet healthy. Once a week is probably enough after it settles in somewhere. For future reference, when talking about the lighting you should also include the total wattage and tank size.

 

[this is me]

It's a gigantea. Watch it closely as it is deflating on and off. Anemone usually don't last that long when the deflating cycle begins.
I would move it away from the corner and give it as much light and flow as possible.

 

[Conrad25]

It is a S. Gigantea. I have one. At night time it is normal for them to shrink up after lights out. Everything I read said that 8 hours had the best results keeping them long term. So thats what I have stuck too with mine. They can't ever get enough to eat or enough light blasted at them. They are not sand dwellers though and usually like to be on the rocks, so be prepared for it to want to move or you can start that and move him halfway up on the rocks, usually when they are larger than 10" they like to be on the rocks with just a small portion of their disk touching the sand while they are smaller you get them completely on the rocks. Also I would advise against silversides and so would many others as people have lost them within hours due to something being in one even if it was fresh. Feed it anything smaller than the size of his mouth. I feed mine a mixture of mysis,krill,squid,shrimp and just about anything else soaked in something beneficial such as selcon or zoeconn etc which helps them imo quite a bit. I usually give him a squirt or two every day of food when I feed the rest of the tank. Good luck and hope he works out for you

Conrad