Yellow Based H. Magnifica

[bwest]

Hey everyone, I found a mag that appeared to be fairly healthy at an LFS. The first day in the tank, it was quite deflated. It's now going on day 2 and I woke up to nice surprise. Hopefully it worked itself out (fingers crossed). It has so far stayed put on a high ledge about 6" from the water's surface. The flow it's getting is variable from a Vortech MP40W located on the very opposite side of the tank.

After looking around I didn't find much reference or pics of a yellow based mag. Does anyone know if this color is just harder to find?

I'll keep this updated with progress.

 

[bwest]

Here are a few more pics I just took minutes ago with lights on. I think it's looking pretty good so far.

The clowns haven't gone in, mostly observing. They haven't been with an anemone for a while, so it appears they are just getting used to it by lightly brushing the tentacles.

The mouth appears to be closed nicely

Here's a full tank shot (Please excuse the magfloat and thermometer

 

[pree]

Wow....lovely specimen bwest. It looks to be in good health, the mouth is shut tight and the tentacles are all inflated.

Here in India, we get most of our mags from the Indian ocean near Sri Lanka and I have yet to see any of that color. Most have brown-purple tentacles with a pink-purple base. I haven't seen any on the internet too that I can recollect now. Amazing find!

 

[OrionN]

If it stay inflate, it should do well. I would worry if it start to deflate on the daily basis, then it is likely that it will not make it.
don't feed it until it stop deflating, and then only feed a little at a time. Finely chopped food at first.
Best of luck

 

[bwest]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14237988#post14237988 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by OrionN
If it stay inflate, it should do well. I would worry if it start to deflate on the daily basis, then it is likely that it will not make it.
don't feed it until it stop deflating, and then only feed a little at a time. Finely chopped food at first.
Best of luck

I'm keeping an eye on it. It actually just deflated now, but looked like it was releasing some waste.

Anyone with mag experience, do they typically deflate when they expel waste?

 

[Mirror Pond]

My two mags do not deflate when expelling waste. Hopefully it just acclimating to your tank. I have had my current mags for about two years and have only seen one of them deflate once, after a large water change. I also lost a couple before I had my current specimens and they both went through the inflate/deflate cycle before they died. Good luck with yours.

 

[bwest]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14238905#post14238905 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Mirror Pond
My two mags do not deflate when expelling waste. Hopefully it just acclimating to your tank. I have had my current mags for about two years and have only seen one of them deflate once, after a large water change. I also lost a couple before I had my current specimens and they both went through the inflate/deflate cycle before they died. Good luck with yours.

Ok thanks for the input. I'll be keeping a close eye on it. It still hasn't reinflated unfortunately. It doesn't look to be deteriorating or anything though. I know they like light, so just in case my t5s weren't enough, I added an extra 150w halide directed on its rock.

Fingers still crossed.

 

[Henryreef]

wow, that is a nice mag! I hope it does well . My fingers are crossed too

 

[bwest]

Quick update: It's been deflating and inflating daily off and on. It seems like everytime it deflates and the mouth is part open, that there is some waste coming out (appears to be digested silverside pieces).

I'm also wondering if I was stressing it out with too much light too soon, so I started to shade it a bit, and it seemed to look a little better and closed up its mouth. In addition, I checked my salinity and it was a bit high at around 1.030, so I slowly lowered it back to 1.025. I must have been slacking with checking it over the past few weeks, and determined that everything was ok by having all of my SPS looking good. Lesson learned.

Tonight is also the first night that one of my clowns is sleeping Mag.

 

[WrinkleFreeZone]

bwest, you've got some good looking SPS colonies. My experiences from the past year with one has taught me that these anemones are going to fire up some pretty strong chemical warfare. I would recommend running carbon if you're not already. I saw a significant decline in my SPS health after the addition of my first mag. Carbon seemed to help this. Currently, I am only keeping a few colonies of them and will likely remove them altogether in the near future.

I have not experienced any issues with deflation while expelling waste so I can't comment on that. When my anemones were clearly sick they had poor tone and the mouth wasn't closed well. Consistency in my parameters, and lots of patience with feeding is what I feel got them through. I posted the information you were asking about in my splitting thread.
-B

 

[maxxII]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14260653#post14260653 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bwest
Quick update: It's been deflating and inflating daily off and on. It seems like everytime it deflates and the mouth is part open, that there is some waste coming out (appears to be digested silverside pieces).

I'm also wondering if I was stressing it out with too much light too soon, so I started to shade it a bit, and it seemed to look a little better and closed up its mouth.

My Ritteri did the exact same thing for the first month I had it. I belive it is acclimating to an increase in lighting intensity. Turn off the 150 MH and let it acclimate to the T-5's.

Mine has the same coloration as yours, and I've had it almost 3 years now.

Nick

 

[bwest]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14267305#post14267305 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by maxxII
My Ritteri did the exact same thing for the first month I had it. I belive it is acclimating to an increase in lighting intensity. Turn off the 150 MH and let it acclimate to the T-5's.

Mine has the same coloration as yours, and I've had it almost 3 years now.

Nick

Good to know it happened for someone else as well, this gives me some hope. I removed the halide and centered it more on the T5s, plus gave it some more flow.

 

[maxxII]

Best thing to do is to stop changing the conditions its under from here on out. Its trying to adapt and constantly changing conditions hinder that. I would avoid adjusting anything else. let it acclimate to the lighting and flow its under right now. You can adjust things later if need be.

Nick

 

[bwest]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14271141#post14271141 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by maxxII
Best thing to do is to stop changing the conditions its under from here on out. Its trying to adapt and constantly changing conditions hinder that. I would avoid adjusting anything else. let it acclimate to the lighting and flow its under right now. You can adjust things later if need be.

Nick

Yeah that makes sense. I'm not even at my place now, so there's no chance in me being tempted to move anything. I plan on letting things go now, unless for some reason it gets too too close to some sps. Then I may have to go in there!

 

[bwest]

Wow this was buried and had to dig to find it.

Unfortunately after only about 15 days I decided to pull the anemone from the tank. It has slowly been declining and inflating less and less each day until tonight it was looking terrible with its mouth wide open, and looking very saggy/stretched out.

I really wanted it to work out and tried my best with it, but like the stories of a bunch of others, it didn't. I have no plans of getting another mag to replace it. I would only consider it down the road if I were to set up a species tank specifically for it.

Anyways thanks everyone for the help over the past couple of weeks with this guy.

Now that the mag is out I gave the long polyp toadstool leather back to the clowns. They seem to like it

 

[pree]

Sad to hear that. I really felt this one would make it, based on how happy he looked in your tank. Guess that is why the H.Mag is considered so difficult. Mine is still doing good (fingers crossed).

The clowns look adorable in the pic above

 

[OrionN]

Sorry to hear about your anemone. Mine is still doing well also.

 

[tufacody]

Sorry to hear this. Unfortunately I've tried a mag twice, in a species only tank, and both exhibited this same behavior before I had to remove them.

When I hear of people doing well with them, I don't know if it makes me happy or sad. It seems the few that do well give us hope to try it, and in the process we kill too many.

 

[bwest]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14397562#post14397562 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tufacody
Sorry to hear this. Unfortunately I've tried a mag twice, in a species only tank, and both exhibited this same behavior before I had to remove them.

When I hear of people doing well with them, I don't know if it makes me happy or sad. It seems the few that do well give us hope to try it, and in the process we kill too many.

Thanks everyone. I know what you mean, but there's obviously no kind of ban for collecting them, so I'm happy that people have at least some success with them.