New mertens

[DrDNA]

I was able to find a mertens this past week, it is about 9" across. It arrived Tuesday and seems to be settling in.

Pic from day 2 in my tank with actinics on:

Pic from this morning (day 3) without actinics:

It ate a small piece of raw tuna late yesterday. I have it under 6500K T5 lighting for now. It was recommended to me to keep it under daylight and then slowly acclimate it to higher kelvin lighting.

This is my first experience with a Merten's anemone!

I'll try to keep my thread updated with pics.

 

[phender]

Very nice. Expect it to get larger as it acclimates to your tank.

I've never heard of using daylight to acclimate. What's the hypothesis behind that?

 

[garygb]

Very nice anemone. I'm envious ; )

 

[DrDNA]

Very nice. Expect it to get larger as it acclimates to your tank.

I've never heard of using daylight to acclimate. What's the hypothesis behind that?

The idea to use daylight is coming from Bob at Ibluewater. He thinks that since the anemones are collected from shallow water that they do better under lower kelvin lighting. He also QTs them for a few weeks under daylight spectrum lighting. Is this really better than acclimating under higher kelvin lighting? I don't really have the experience with enough anemones to say to yes or no. I have been keeping my large H. magnifica under 6500K lighting recently and it seems to stay inflated longer and be generally healthier, but maybe this is just a combination that works in my particular system.

When I turned the actinics on for the merten's, it did not respond well. It contracted pretty quickly over 30 mins or so. So, back to just daylight for a few days.

 

[BonsaiNut]

Interesting. Perhaps he knows these are collected from shallower water? Maybe they are kept in sunlit holding tanks? I have never heard of the sunlight acclimatization approach, so I can't really comment on it one way or another.

 

[Greg 45]

What temp did bob at Ibluewater recomend

 

[OrionN]

periodic update would be great

 

[anemoneguy]

good luck with anything from bob. i have gotten some of the worse advise and anemones from him. he makes a big claim that he holds all his stock for at least 2 weeks but he shipped me a fresh mertins that was pretty much doa. plus the pic he sent me i found he had up just the other day. so its obvious it wasnt the nem i ordered or received. i found a gig on ebay of all places after that and have had it almost a year now.

 

[SNAKEMANVET]

A great lookin anemone.

 

[Rare Angels]

Any updates of this mertens?

 

[cichlidconvert]

Are you able to get a pic of the underside. Just curious to see what it looks like.

 

[DrDNA]

Unfortunately it didn't make it. It was very nice for awhile, but I just couldn't keep it going. Someday I will try again..

 

[Reefvette]

That is because it was stressed and bleached.

The white stripes on the edge is an indication of stress.

If they are found in shallow water they are already acclimated to strong lighting. The problem is during the collection process and the holdig they recieve crappy lighting. Also a huge mertens like that is very hard to keep alive and dont do well in captivity.

 

[Rare Angels]

Sorry to hear the DrDNA

Do you have an details as to the progression of the anemone failing? Things you tried? Just trying to get some learnings from the experience.

 

[DrDNA]

It seemed to do fine for a week or so, then went downhill really quick. I really don't know what I would have done differently.

Sorry to hear the DrDNA

Do you have an details as to the progression of the anemone failing? Things you tried? Just trying to get some learnings from the experience.