sorry, I'm a noob

[ladyfsu]

I have a bunch of oce's that were donated to my class. I want to get a couple of anemones for them (these are separate tanks). The pet store down the road has 4 giant saddleback anemones, a purple sebae, and a couple of long tentacle anemones. Which ones will be most compatible. I like the saddlebacks the best but they are twice as much money so I want to be sure before I get them. Also, which ones are most likely to split/divide? ... just BTA's?

These anemones will not be in the same tank by the way.

 

[criccio]

What type of lighting? BTA's are the spliters, and the best for a noobi.

 

[raoul]

That was nice that someone donated occel.'s to your class, this hobby is full of interesting things to learn and observe.

As far as nems go, the general rule is to have your tank mature for 6 months after it cycles to add a nem. Are your tanks old enough? Clowns are okay with out nems, especially if they have some hiding place options. The relationship is a great one to see, and I completely understand wanting to add one! But doing it the right way is the best way - less stress on everyone involved.

For splitting, your best option is bta, it's also the least demanding and most forgiving. A very good site to learn more about them is
http://www.karensroseanemones.com/

Unfortunately, with common names like sebae and long tentacle, it's hard to say which type of nems these are exactly, and I'm not sure what a saddleback anemone refers too, but you say it's giant, so maybe a carpet??

Lots of times sebae is given to H. crispa, and these are usually very poor shippers, but if this one is purple and not white it may be in decent shape. LTA is applied to M. doreensis quite a bit, I don't have much experience with these though. However the common names are also applied to both these species, and both of these are generally ranked higher in difficulty than btas.

I don't know that I was much help, sorry, if you could get scientific names that would probably be helpful. Thanks for checking into them before just buying one, that makes things a lot easier on you, the nem, and the kids

 

[raoul]

Also meant to mention tank size, lots of these nems will grow well with the proper care and they out grow smaller tanks.

Another nice thing about bta's is that you can get captive bred/cloned nems. The more we can share from our tanks, the less that comes out of the ocean - this might be a good conservation lesson for the children too.

 

[ladyfsu]

I don't think the LFS knows the scientific names to be quite honest, lol. They are very nice people but cater to several types of pets and I wouldn't even think the guy in charge of the fish dept knows the real specifics. He said the saddle was from Venezuela I believe, and they were brown/tan.

Tank size? Well, lol....hard to explain. I have 5 sets of tank "stations." Each station is about 100 gallons, but divided into 4 tanks and a sump/fuge. This pic will better explain.

The tanks have been up for over 6 months, and most everything is doing very well. My main purpose is, besides teaching marine biology and things like symbiosis, also to teach marine conservation.

Yes, it was very very nice that someone gave them to us.

The lights are 4x96 PC's.

We've had the clowns for 3 months and they are fine, but for the sake of teaching about symbiosis and gain more student interest because, I want a couple of clownfish/anemone setups.

We have 5 tanks over 55 gallons for them to move up to, a couple that are 100. (and to think...10 months ago, we didn't have a single tank or fish ).

 

[RedEyeElf]

I love the definition of noob these days

i wish my teachers were like you!

 

[ladyfsu]

ok well I'm not a total noob but I've never taken care of clowns. Less than a year ago I had never had a coral, and never operated ANY type of power tool, and never had live rock. NOW I'm sawing with several types of saws, have a couple 1,000 lbs of donated aquacultured FL live rock, am trying to have my students breed various things, and we're fragging a few corals. I'm learning more than I have in my life, and I've even probably forgotten 70% of what I've learned this past year :0

But the anemones....

apparently I got lucky with a condy at my house.

I also bought some stupid dyed carnation anemone I think, and it died pretty quick.

Then I bought an Atlantic carpet anemone that ate 3 pretty fish.

...anyways...I don't want to screw up again.

Thank you very much for the compliment though. I've made as many errors as successes, or more during these trials, but I'm having a blast and now I think my students are too.

I had a real motivation kick because of some stupid stuff at school, and most of what you see is donated (sheets of acrylic, lumber, corals, fish). I built it all myself and I had never even operated a drill before. Many students helped and you can tell they're proud too.

 

[raoul]

With your lights, and assuming the tanks are regular height, I wouldn't consider anything but a bta at this point, and even then, I would double check the lighting guidelines using pc's. The other nems almost always require more intense lighting.
There's a lot of good info in the FAQ on clowns and anemones near the top of the forum.

If you want to illustrate cloning, conservation, symbiotic relationships, and even personal responisbility (choosing captive over wild when possible) I would definately go with bta's. The captive clones are hardier and in better shape than their wild caught counter parts which increases your chances of sucess. These you can usually obtain through fellow aquarists, if there's one local, that's even better, the nem doesn't have the shipping stress.

You might want to consider talking with Phender. He's a teacher in California and because his reef animals/corals are used for teaching purposes he's been able to get them from wholesalers which cuts down on the price. I don't know what's involved to do something like that, and if it's even possible to do in FL, but it might be worth a try.

As far as scientific names, they might be on the packing list, at least they are on the packing lists in my neck of the woods.

Good luck!

 

[raoul]

We were posting at the same time, I wanted to add that I think this is wonderful you're doing this!
Hopefully these students will fall in love with it like most of us have and will be able to help conserve and take care of our oceans!

 

[GSMguy]

bta will bring you the most luck