Wahoo! My H. magnifica split!

[WrinkleFreeZone]

I've been successfully keeping a H. magnifica for the past year. About 4 months ago another one became available from a local hobbyist who wasn't having great success with it. The specimen wasn't in the best shape when I saw it. Nevertheless, I decided to take the plunge and risk the one that I was having success with so that his wouldn't end up in a system that definitely couldn't support it. I spent a lot of time taking care of this anemone, relying on my experiences from the other one. My efforts appear to have paid off. This morning, to my utter amazement and pleasure, I now have 3 H. mags in my tank. (Don't worry, it's not stress - I checked everything; apparently it's feeding!) The parent anemone was about 15" in diameter before the split. One daughter looks to be about 8" and the other about 7". Now, if I could only get up the pearls to actively propagate them by dividing them like Flighty and some of the others have done we might be able to keep from having to take them off of the reef.
-B

 

[RiverOtter]

Wow, great job there! If more of us propagated there would be less "nice pure white" amamone in the LFS's.

I can not wait to get a anemone, but I need to. I am moving my tank and I want it running in the new spot at least 4 months before adding anything else.

 

[tylerdj]

Wow, congratulations.

 

[Lmecher]

Would love to see them.

 

[garygb]

Great news! Pics?

 

[WrinkleFreeZone]

I'll try to get some pictures up tonight. I'm still at work.
-B

 

[Gig 'em]

Congratulations! I can't wait to see some pics. Where did you get your mags from? I don't think I've seen a healthy mag in Texas yet...

 

[bwest]

If you wouldn't mind, could you post your tank parameters, flow and lighting.

It seems like you're having some good success, so if possible I'd like to try and mimic the conditions as much as I can. Thanks!

 

[WrinkleFreeZone]

A couple of pictures

A couple of pictures

Sorry for the delay. I shot a couple of pictures last night when I got home, but unfortunately, my camera cable was at work. The daughter anemones are at the peak of some rock work oriented towards the back of my tank. I can't get a better shot at this point. I'm hoping that when the halides come on today that the other one will stop being so shy and pose for a picture. I'll try to get another shot of the one that's facing towards the side to show it's mouth but last night this was the best that I could do. Enjoy...

And here's another one...

For reference, the smaller clown is about 2.5" long and the larger is a little over 3"
-B

 

[bwest]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14260619#post14260619 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bwest
If you wouldn't mind, could you post your tank parameters, flow and lighting.

It seems like you're having some good success, so if possible I'd like to try and mimic the conditions as much as I can. Thanks!

Maybe you just didn't get to it yet, but would love to get some insight. Thanks

 

[WrinkleFreeZone]

Gig'em the first one that I found was by complete accident. I had been reading just about anything I could find on them for around a year. I felt like I was well versed in their husbandry and in the difficulty that many reefkeepers have with keeping them long term. On my birthday of all days I walked into a LFS and it was sitting in one of the tanks just acclimated from its shipping. It looked as healthy as a specimen could be after shipping. I figured, Happy Birthday to me and I walked out with it.

That was the first step of a long road in keeping it alive. It looked great for about a week. I thought that I might actually succeed. Then, some time during the second or third week it started to get the dwindles. The mouth wasn't tight anymore and its turgor wasn't great. Then there was an odd occurrence with its tentacles. I would see tentacles floating loose in the tank and I couldn't figure it out. I finally caught the culprits...my clowns would basically rip them off and mouth (eat?) chunks of them. The anemone responded and started looking like it had had a haircut. The tentacles became really short and stubby and it couldn't hold onto food items. By this point I thought that I would lose it. I was sick with guilt. I felt like my ego had gotten in the way and that I had contributed to the loss of an animal that could live on a reef for a hundred years. I decided that there was no way that I'd let it just melt away. In surgery, we learn that nutrition is a key to healing. I applied this to the anemone and I became its nurse. I fed it small amounts of mysis daily using a turkey baster. I fed directly into the mouth. It would open slightly and I would hold the shrimp there until it was able to close around it. At the beginning it was a painfully slow process. It took about 6-8 weeks, but finally it became healthy again.

The second one (the one that split) I found from a local hobbyist following Hurricane Ike. Before the hurricane it had been kept for a few months successfully. Unfortunately, the hurricane took its toll. When I got it, it also was unable to hold onto food. So, out came the turkey baster and mysis again until it could hold onto food items. It took about a month or so for this. Before the split, I was feeding a mix of mysis and pieces of silversides.
-B

 

[garygb]

Look great, thanks for the pics. My purple based mags split just over two years ago and went to opposite sides of the rock they were on like yours are.

 

[OrionN]

I also got one that split, over several years, It split twice and I end up with 4 in my tank. It was a purple base anemone also.

 

[WrinkleFreeZone]

bwest, my tank is a 220 gallon mixed bare bottom reef with a 50 gallon rock only sump. My tank was heavily impacted by Hurricane Ike and I have not replaced all of the corals that I lost in the power outage following the storm. I am thinking of taking my tank in a new direction. I have a fairly heavy fish load and I manage the nutrient export for this using a 60 gallon display refugium. This was initially a planted refugium, but due to an unfortunate and inadvertent introduction of several Caulerpa species it isn't exactly where I want it to be at this point.

In terms of flow, I have 2 Vortech MP40s and 1 Tunze 6201 in the display going full bore. There is also one closed loop return and one main return each rated for what I believe is around 1800 gph. This leads to just over a 50x turnover rate.

I don't have or do anything fancy for my lighting. I run a Hamilton system with 2 400 W MHs (the current bulbs are 14K) and 2 96 W PCs that each peak at 470nm. I would like to try to see how these anemones would do under a warmer Kelvin rating as I have come across some literature supporting this, but my wife who tolerates my hobby is a big fan of blue. This explains the current bulb setup. I run the PC's from 7-1900 and the MHs from 10-1700.

In terms of parameters, I checked them earlier today so that I could more completely answer your question:
T: 78-82 - depends on the day. It's hot here.
pH: 8.2-8.3
SG: 1.024
Calcium: 480
kH: 8
Magnesium: I forgot to check, but usually it's around 1300
Nitrate: 0
Phosphate:0

I dose two part solution as needed. I rarely check my water parameters as my system is very stable. I tend to perform 10-20% water changes every 6 weeks or so. Anything else you'd like to know about my setup or what I'm doing?
-B

 

[bwest]

Wow, thank you. I appreciate the thorough description and the time you took to retest everything.

I'll let you know if there's anything else I come up with

 

[tufacody]

What I find amazing is that your anemones would still feed. I have lost two mags. Each time they would acclimate great and look awesome for a week or two, then start rapid sessions on inflating/deflating. I can't imagine getting it to eat in the deflated stage, even with a baster.

 

[WrinkleFreeZone]

I'm beginning to think that it's possible that the Heteractis anemones that we receive in good condition are dying of starvation. They have a lot of biomass to feed, and I'm sure that they've been off of the reefs for weeks before they make it into our tanks. I'm sure that their energy reserves are depleted and then when we stick them in our tanks we starve them some more because there's a lot of information saying that when acclimating an anemone that it shouldn't be fed. This doesn't really make sense to me, and I don't think that I agree with this anymore. I will argue that the anemone should be fed the day you put it into your tank.

Believe it or not, the baster really worked for me. I don't mean to offer up the hope that this will solve all of the acclimation problems, because I don't think it will. I am posting this here so that hopefully someone else might be able to salvage an animal that is still salvageable or refine the technique to improve the survival of these animals.

In terms of what I did, this was not a fast process and to get it to feed when it had begun to decline took a lot of patience. When I did this the first time, the anemone would not hold onto food and I wasn't really sure what to do. In surgery, if you're unable to eat, we'll put a tube into your stomach or into your small intestine and feed you that way. I figured that I'd give it a try with the anemone and bypass the transport of the food into the mouth. I used mysis because of its small size and a baster because I don't know of any orogastric tube made for an anemone. I'd literally stick the tip of the baster into the depths of the open mouth and slowly offer it food. Not all the shrimp stayed in and bunches of it floated away, but some stuck and remained and slowly this induced the anemone to close its mouth. I tried this everyday. It got little bits when I did this, and apparently this was enough to allow it to survive through the acclimation period. To be fair, the second time that I did this, the anemone wasn't nearly as in much trouble as the first one, but it was enough to get it back to health. Now it's reproduced and I don't regret for a second that I did it..
-B

 

[Gig 'em]

That's an interesting and compelling method of feeding the anemone. I remember a few years ago when I was still uneducated and had an unhealthy mag I tried inserting mysis into the open mouth of the mag with a turkey baster, but then the mag would open it's mouth more and try to push them out. maybe when I tried it I inserted too much too fast. Hopefully one day I will get another chance and find a healthy mag to buy... I'm interested to see how your mags progress, please keep us informed!

 

[OrionN]

The reason I do not feed them, or feed them too much initially is that I was able to get them to eat fine but only to regurgitate later and looking terrible when it does this. I like other people, can be a little impatient and offer food too early and every time that they regurgitate, it take them several days to recover. A healthy H. magnifica eat a lot and grow a lot, but not an new and un-settled one. That is why I make sure that they stay inflate for several days before I feed them and start out with small amount at first and increase if they tolerate the small amount.
New anemone take a lot of patient to feed. I have to guard their food for them to keep other animal, even bristle worms can take food form an unhealthy anemone. My H. malu now routinely kill and eat bristle worms, but at first I have to stay and keep the worms from taken bits of food I feed the anemone.
I tried them all, from squirt blenderized food into the mouth of the H. magnifica to feeding them and guard the food from other animals.

 

[Flighty]

Keep in mind that an anemone is a far cry from a mammal. Solid food is not critical to their survival. They get food as soon as they are in the light and the zoanthelle produce sugars that power the tissues. I'm sure your surgery patients are not getting chunks of shrimp in their NG tube, but probably something more like a sugar solution. I'm sure a magnifica under strong light can go many months probably years without any solid food (as long as it is not bleached).

The anemone's body is not much more than a stomach cavity and two layers of tissue around it. The most common problem I see with new mags is some sort of infection. You often see waste with chunks of undigested food and necrotic tissue being expelled by sick anemones. In my opinion, solid food gives a vector and good home for whatever (bacteria, virus, fungus, who knows) is eating the anemone from the inside out.

Just another view to think about.