Pics - S. gigantea, then and now (almost 2 years apart)

[delphinus]

Just wanted to share some pics of one of my S. gigantea carpets.

First pic was taken a day after purchase and it had settled into my tank (which was almost 2 years ago). Second pic was taken today.

Hard to get a sense of scale from the two pics, but it is maybe about twice as large today as it was back then. Today it is about 8"-9" across but back then it was barely 4"-5".


May 2004:

March 2006:

Some background: Tank is my former SPS tank (now just an anemone and fish tank, no SPS anymore). 75g, 5 MJ12's on a wavemaker, lighting is 2x250W 10000K (switched from 6500K this last summer), plus 2x220W actinics. Sump return is a LG4. Flow is brisk and alternating. Carpet is fed mostly mysis with a variety of other things that I feed my fish as well. Very vigourous eater of mysis. No clowns currently in this tank so no clowns hosting in it. There are also 3 BTA's (2 GBTA's & 1 RBTA) in the tank, so unfortunately the tank is rather full of anemone. I do plan to eventually house them separately, since the tank doesn't have room for much else at the moment.

 

[Elmo18]

Hi Tony.

I love seeing success pics. Seeing something from bleaching to being healthy is always great to see.

Post some couple years from now

Best,
Ilham

 

[ricordiaking]

WOW, it looks gigantic! What are you feeding that thing?

 

[delphinus]

Thanks guys. The first pic is probably a little overexposed because it's a little washed out. I never really got a bad vibe off the anemone at the store so although it was quite light in colour, I didn't really think of it as so bleached that it was compromised. It didn't take long for it to darken out at all.

Here is a picture that was taken in June 2004 (one month after purchase) and you can see the colour really darkened and the tentacles elongated fairly quickly.

Ricordiaking: It gets a little bit of everything. I feed mysis every other day and it usually catches a fair amount of that, but it will also catch flake food (even spirulina), and it will even catch Cyclops-eeze. I don't know if it matters much, I do try to make sure it gets a tiny little bit of food every day (as opposed to, say, one larger feeding once per week).

 

[SWonly]

Nice anemone.. wheres the clown?

 

[DMK]

nice. has it eaten any fish?

 

[OldmillXxX]

Did yours stay where you dropped it, or did it walk before settling in that location?

 

[delphinus]

I actually only have one pair of clowns at the moment and they're hosting in my other carpet in a different tank.

I'm working on building an inwall tank and developing my basement around that project so haven't actively been thinking about buying new fish at the moment since they'll just have to be moved in a couple months anyhow.

I've never lost any fish to it and in fact it is a fairly benign member of the reef community in my 75g tank. It's sticky and it loves planktonic sized foods but I don't really worry about it taking down fish. Although stickier than my BTAs and my ritteri, there's no comparison to S. haddoni in terms of aggression.

It has never wandered. In fact it sits only about 4" away from the spot I put it in originally, and that difference is only because I rearranged the rockwork recently. It is in an ideal spot at the convergence of the flow paths of several powerheads so it gets a good flushing of water in one direction for 10-20 seconds, then another direction, and so on. There's no question this species desires strong flow so I try to provide for that requirement.