Hi everyone. My experience with anenomes is very limited, but I'll put my 2 cents in.
Let me start off by saying that I have never owned any one of the "host" anenomes, and everything I know about them is from reading and talking with other aquarists. I've never liked clownfish much anyway (a heretic!!).
However, there was a time when I was not so knowledgable; I avoided most mistakes with a lot of reading, but bought two Condylactis gigantea anenomes before I really knew what I was getting into. One was a deep purple color with pink tips, and the other a light cream (almost white) color with no color on the tips. They both grew well and quickly for about 2.5 years. Neither ever significantly changes color. I have them in a tank (75 gal hybrid berlin with 160 watts NO light, 1/2 10000k super daylight and 1/2 actinic. Tank parameters are, and have been the entire time the anenomes have been in there, excellent. Both wandered for a while and settled in spots in which they stayed. Both got very big (started at 3" diameter, the purple one is now about 9" in diameter). The purple one picked a spot high up on a crest of LR about 3" under the surface, directly under the lights. The lights are 2" above the surface. The white one chose a spot not quite so high. The white one once caught and ate a juvenile sailfin tang (which I suspect was ailing) about a year ago. When the anenome was eating the sailfin, a large hermit crab (I have learned not to keep these anymore) grabbed the tail of the fish (which was hanging out of the anenome's mouth), and forcibly pulled the dead sailfin out. I removed the fish from the tank when I got home. (this all hapened when I was at work- my fiancee called me when she saw it, and to spare her the possibility of making a mistake and feeling bad, I told her to leave it be until I got home. The dead fish was in the tank only about an hour, and there was no ammonia spike).
I fed both anenomes thawed frozen shrimp and silverside bits, 3 times per week. The purple one is still doing great. However, over the last 2 months, the white anenome has rapidly shrunk, and now will not take food. I gently place a bit of food in the tentacles, as I have always done, but the anenome will not eat it, and eventually the food drifts free. Also, this anenome has wandered back down the rock structure from the spot it occupied for over 2 years, and is now "hiding" in a rock crevice an inch or so from the bottom. I expect that this anenome will die. I will not replace it, nor the other one should it also die.
Now, what happened? I do not know. Was it that the "white" anenome lost most of it zooxanthellae before I bought it, and was doomed? Possibly. Was it that the purple anenome chose a spot nearer to the light, and thus is in "better conditions"? Perhaps. Was the white anenome subtly but fatally injured in the incident with the sailfin and the hermit? Probably, but not definitely (the slow metabolism of anenomes keeps us from seeing an immediate "cause and effect" dynamic in their lives). The truth is that I do not know, and neither does anyone else.
All told, the purple anenome (still doing well) has thrived for anout 2.5 years in the same tank with an anenome that thrived for anout 2 years and 2 months and is now apparently dying. I cannot call this a success. From my understanding, the Condylactis anenomes are "easier" and "hardier" than their pacific cousins, the "host" anenomes. I cannot draw a specific conclusion from all this, except that keeping anenomes is not for me. I will not buy another Condylactis, and I will never try the host anenomes, unless a major scientific breakthrough occurs, and proof can be furnished that these creatures can be successfully kept in captivity. This will be many years down the road at the soonest, and perhaps never.
Just my 2 cents. Thanks for reading.
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HFF
Please stock your tank lightly; crowded fish are unhappy fish.
Please don't flush unwanted or misbehaving fish; donate them to you LFS.
[This message has been edited by herefishiefishie (edited 10-10-1999).]