Anemone care

[Max]

Sorry if this looks a bit choppy but, I'm just cutting and pasting from a pdf. It needs some minor improvements and clarification and they'll be done in the next couple of weeks.

Common Anemones
Hi everyone
I've been noticing that lots of people all over the place are adding anemones to their tanks. I though it might be nice to give a brief description of some of the more common ones. The first three are all Caribbean or Atlantic species and aren't naturally host for clowns. There will be another larger post on pacific clowns some time in the near future. Please feel free to add any comments or thoughts.
General:

All anemones need stable water conditions in order to survive. Some are more forgiving than others as will be explained in the species accounts. In general you don't want to add an anemone to a tank that is less than eight months old. You should also have a large amount of live rock,pc or halide lights depending on the species. I would also recommend that everyone please consider what they are getting into prior to purchase. In order for many species to thrive you have to more or less design the tank with the anemone in mind. Very few of them will breed in your tank and they all sting so be careful what you glue down next to them. Most of them are not able to sting through your skin. I'll talk a little about clowns when I do the Indo/Pacific rant. Here are three most common.







1. Epicystis crucifer "rock or flower anemones"

These are one of the most hardy and forgiving anemones out there. They are also very inexpensive. They are from the Atlantic/Gulf they tend to stay small aren't as picky about water conditions as many. They are also easy to feed don't move around too much come in a great variety of colors. They tend to confine them selves to rocky areas so you can place them on rocky islands on your sand bed and it will limit movement even more. They need to eat about every other day fish, squid or other meaty food preferably pre-soaked in selcon or other supplement. They will also appreciate the occasional dosing of phyto or other food for filter feeders. They also aren't as aggressive as many including the ever popular bubble tip. I highly recommend this species for new reefers and people with nano's due to their forgiving nature,"for newbies" and small size for nanos. These are the only large anemone species that I would recommend in a newer set up.




2. condy, hatian , pink tip "Condylactis gigantea" These guys also are very easy to take care of and are inexpensive. They don't require metal halides you could probably manage them under p.c. They are very easy to keep and forgiving of water parameters. Their diet is much like the Epicystis. There are some major issues to be considered with these guys. They are very prone to moving around the tank they also can sting corals and other sessile inverts to death. They are also notorious fish eaters. They get BIG as well sometimes larger than a professional league basket ball. I wouldn't recommend these guys to anyone wanting a non gulf origin reef IMO more trouble than they are worth.




3. Curly que "glass anemone no not aptapsia"
These are really very neat little critters. They aren't as hardy as either of the above anemones. They also stay very small in size and have a number of symbiotic critters that live with them. They are mostly filter feeders and no direct feeding is required although they will grab bits of food out of the water column . They don't look much but if you can find some of their symbiotes they can be really neat. They are also very likely to reproduce in your tank. If they are happy with the situation they can be as big a plague as astapsia. They reproduce like shrooms from pedal laceration so removal is pretty easy. You don't have to worry about small bits breaking off and growing into new ones if you get all of the foot. They will also work in pico tanks.
next part Indo\pacific and part 3 general care and tips.
Hope you all enjoy let me know what you think!!

part II

















General care:






Please before you buy an anemone make sure that you really want one and can house it properly. If you are buying one just to give a clown new homes don’t. Most clowns are tank raised and have no need or idea what an anemone is. Anemones will also make clowns MUCH more aggressive than they are in tanks without them. Having an anemone to defend will bring out their defensive nature. For species like Tomatoes for example that may well mean that all your other fish are cowering in a corner as far from it as it can get. Some of the wild caught clowns will need an anemone before they will settle down and adjust to tank life. Again in these cases make sure you know what you're getting into with both critters as they will often have some exacting care requirements.


All anemones have some things in common as far as care goes. If your are new to salt water or reefing in specific please pay close attention to this. First they are not easy to keep alive. I would try out other soft coral etc first and make sure that I could keep them healthy and growing. To many people buy anemones on impulse so do as much research on the critter as you can before you buy. A number of people change their minds after they see what they are getting into. They will all eat fish if they get the chance so don't add anything slow," Mandarins being a prime example," or that likes to live in the same areas they do. Even clowns have to develop an immunity to the anemones sting what they do is cover them selves in the anemones mucus so that it doesn't identify them as an invader. On the whole I'd have to strongly discourage anyone without at least one year of invert keeping experience from trying them.


They all need tanks with very stable water conditions. They don't deal very well with rapid changes so if you're correcting an issue please be sure to do it slowly. A sudden change from a bad water situation to normal will stress these critters as much or more than the issue will also applies to lighting etc. They do best in tanks with either glass bottoms or sand bottoms. Nitrates need to stay below 10ppm in order for them to really thrive. For photosynthetic species they require either halide or p.c. lights. Keep up on your bulb replacement as well because a large portion of their nutrition comes from them.
They also need a well established tank with 1.5 to 2 lbs of l.r. per gallon. a large portion of their nutrient will come off the critters reproducing on your rock. I wouldn't attempt any variety in a tank that was less than about 8 months old if you are new to reefing. If you’re not new any rock that's been in tank for 5 or 6 months will do. You in either situation will still have to supplement their diets with as wide a variety as possible of foods for inverts. They also need meaty foods as often as every day supplemented with selcon or other additives.


When you purchase your new anemone there are some things you want to look at. Fist make sure that they are intact no rips in the foot are missing tentacles. Don't ever buy a dyed anemone some species like the Sebae are much more likely to be dyed than others. They very seldom recover from this process so know how the critter you want is supposed to look. Bleaching if an anemone looses all the symbiotic algae in its cells it's what we refer to as bleached. They will appear white or lighter in color again; know what you’re looking at. In minor cases of bleaching it can be corrected by the frequent additions of small meals. Never buy an anemone with the plan of nursing it back to health it's usually not likely. This is also one the few critters I'd say buy just as soon after it comes into the shop as possible. Lots of times that will be when they are in the very best shape at the lfs.


When you are adding this critter to your tank it needs to adjust to temp and your tank conditions very slowly. I'd very slowly fill the bag with water from the Lfs with no more than 1/8 cup of water every 25 mins. When the bag is full start taking water out of it and disposing of it. Continue process until you have replaced the contents of the bag twice. I know it's going to take a while like this but you really do have to go slow. Don't ever place an anemone in hospital tank directly introduce it to your main tank.
There are some things that every anemone keeper needs to know about their new pets. They live for a very long time some species more than 100 years in the wild. You shouldn't add more than one sort of anemone to most tanks. They carry out bio-chemical ware fare so you may have to run carbon if you have other corals. They can move and sting that's real bad combo and you'll have to keep an eye on them. You should try your best to avoid removing an anemone if possible. If you absolutely have to please post or pm me there are several different ways to do this and it depends on what sort of anemone you have. Never use any copper based mrd in your anemone tank.
Please read the species specific articles and post if you have any more questions. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you have any observations etc. please feel free.


Chris

[bencozzy]

you can drip acclimate in a 5g bucket, just float bag in tank for 15-20min to equalize temp then transfer nem and water to bucket and start a slow drip using air tubing and a plastic valve.

do 2-3 drops every 10 secs. and when the bucket fills up transfer the nem and discard the water.

add tulip anemones and mini carpet anemones very easy to keep extremely hardy(very forgiving) and will split, small in size.

the only host anemone i can recommend with out feeling guilty is a captive grown clone BTA.

foods-mysis, cyclopeeze, articpods, ocean nutritions brine shrimp plus frozen and prime reef frozen, clam and squid, silverside, krill. those are the most commonly accepted foods. and have selcon and vita-chem marine on hand to fortify foods.

most nems depends need fed every day to every three days, if you are trying to control growth then feed them less until they stop getting bigger.

and ive noticed anemones are more sensitive to phosphates and silicates than to nitrates. and extremely sensitive to heavy metals. so ro/di water is best along with a phos reactor with rowaphos media.

and temp on most nems needs to be between 78-81F

HTH
ben