traveller7

Lots of comments, but here is a pair of black and white ocellaris in a group of BTAs: You'll also find sites telling you anemones eat powdered invert food, anemones don't eat, etc. It may take awhile for A. ocellaris(False Percula) to call a BTA home, but there are ways to assist the process without injurying either party. Best to give it 6 months and let nature take its course. Cheers. btw: Please do not get a carpet at this stage of experience or tank establishment.

Ah, mistaken expectation. The goal is to get it to wander continually in the area of your choosing ;>)

Glass? Old credit card held at a 30 degree angle to start, once an edge releases slip a finger under the foot and tickle the areas it is attached until it releases completely. A BTA on the move will already be "loosely" attached at the leading edge(the direction it is moving in) if you move quickly you can even get them off rock with such a start.

I am attempting to rework my schedule this weekend, but it does not look good at this point :( Since I only know a few things, I might actually be able to help you out More likely, I'll know who to ask :D Hope to see you there.

Looks like a 3" clay flower pot with good sized chunk of live rock in it would do the trick. Place flower pot on the sand(BTAs prefer not to let go of hard substrate and tend to avoid sand unless something is wrong), place chunk of LR inside(wedge it so it does not move easily), handle the anemone a bit so it deflates, place it foot down into the pot as low as it can go without smashing it. The idea is to give the anemone place to extend the base of it's foot and attach in a protected location. It should then reach toward light during the day and contract slightly over night. During the settling in process it may wander in and out of the flowerpot, but should find it's way back in as long as the pot is full surrounded by sand and the lighting/water conditions are not so irritating it lets go of the pot to go tumbling. fwiw: Nice benefit of a flower pot, you can relocate it, bury it in the LR pile later, clowns breed well in flower pots, etc. btw: You mention it does not look as good, is it losing color or getting lighter brown? It appears a bit bleached from the pictures.

Howdy Raf, My pair actually prefers a group of BTAs to the H. crispa they have now(small H. crispa in first picture off this thread). They are not really picky and have called at least 10 different anemones/corals home over the years. For folks intent on breeding, I would be recommending BTAs or nothing at all, the overfeeding to maintain high yields drives the maintenance interval too much for my taste Picture of the pair before the skunks and nigripes kicked them out of the BTA colony: fwiw: Don't be surprised to see slight changes in coloration as they change species of anemones. Saw you might be selling your pair, they would be a good deal for anyone interested in a hardy pair of clowns. So much better to pick them up after a few months of conditioning Take care and all the best. Scott

Doubt Chip or I would argue with anything you posted and your points to question 3 are very important when selecting a specimen ;>)

Stability is key with many anemone species, established tanks tend to be more stable. Unless the rock is well established and maintained during "new" tank transitions, I tend to wait a few months. This is a wide range of species tolerance though, i.e. Haddoni is frequently on tidal flats and out of water for a few hours, hardly stable. Most clowns are a net benefit, although many are quite abusive. General rule for sizing the anemone to clown is to have the anemone's oral disk 3x greater then the clown length. I prefer to allow the anemone to stabilize and begin growing prior to allowing clowns to call it home(30ish days or so). High probability abusers(tentacle eating, mouth picking, column biting, food stealing): Maroons and Black Saddlebacks. Hosting anemone sizing is species dependent but here are a few generals: BTA: 3-5" with well formed tentacles(larger if tentacles are damaged, bleached, etc.) M. doreensis: 6-8" H. crispa: 6-10" H. magnifica: Avoid S. haddoni: 7-10" (good shipping size, larger ones frequently damaged, stressed, etc.) S. gigantea: Avoid A general rule, smaller specimens ship better but don't provide much time to acclimate before wasting away. When adding a clown into the mix, smaller anemones don't stand up well to hosting clowns. Mysis and brine when they catch them and since I overfeed the clowns by 2x, the anemones grab some daily. 1 week - 2 months, lancefish. IME stability is important. Chip and I have tanks at opposite ends of the water quality spectrum. His is text book managed, mine is nitrate laden "breeder" quality and lucky to see water changes every few months. For the record, Chips anemones grow much larger in my tanks :D If dosing, make sure the dosing point is away from the anemone.

Have not had any trouble with mine pestering anemones. btw: Ciliata is one of my favorites

Move fast: http://www.liveaquaria.com/diversden/ItemD...0&siteid=20 Purple, green, and blue pizza anemone. This anemone has a very potent sting. Size: 4-1/2" This specimen is currently available. To order, click on the cart symbol below. All Diver's Den

Hi Ric, Tough to analyze a single picture but: - some of the tentacles appear to actually be damaged- predation, dosing nearby, powerhead, or heater? - column appears to have damage - division, predation, powerhead, heater? How long have you had it? Recent arrivals, acclimations, etc., frequently show more stress the first few days only to quickly adapt to a new tank. Source? If it was from a local division, I would just make sure predation, power heads, heaters, and proper acclimation to lighting are not issues. Best of luck.

Great news Phil Keep good notes to support tweaking the procedures at each stage and increasing yields.

Hiya Phil, Sorry my PM box is always full on WAMAS, but never full on Reef Central While I have some opinions, MarinaP is likely the best person to comment directly on the procedure you are employing. Only one of my pairs lays on tiles and I don't bother to raise them. First off if you leave the eggs with the parents, can you confirm high percentage hatch? Diet is frequently the issue to deal with if the hatch is low in the natural environment. Really only want/need to remove the tile/eggs one day before hatch out. Err on the side of too much flow, rather then too little. Larger bubbles then the wood skimmer air stones provide, use the typical rod FW air stone type and shoot for egg mass movement and gentle water circulation. 7x24hr air flow. It is not unusual for eggs to hatch over a 2 night period, but IME the largest group pops on a single night. fwiw: My experience is really in getting clowns to breed, there are others here and on RC who are going to be far more helpful in tweaking the larval stages.

Hi Dave, If you establish the new anemone first to be sure it will survive and the ocellaris do not occupy both anemones you have a reasonable chance. Skunks typically are home bodies and defend their turf from the anemone itself, sort of a sneak attack and dive back in the anemone. As long as they consider the anemone a suitable home, have a suitable breeding surface, get fed, etc., they don't wander far.... If the anemone becomes unhealthy, they well absolutely venture out and take one from competitors. Ocellaris tend to wander less when they see competition, so meet their requirements for breeding (whether they do or not is moot) and again you have a chance. Problem areas: Anemones move, anemones die, clowns die (females move in to try and take another females place), etc., etc. The only real question is going to be how long d

IMHO:copper for amyloo formalin baths for brook hypo(1.009) for ick lower salinity(1.015ish) for general stress reduction. Hopefully, you don't have to do any of the above and I would work to ID specific issues before broadcasting a treatment. Take pictures the first few days with specific focus on the first stripe. Be on the look out for them to break down around day 9-12. Good luck.

If your target blue stripes are A. chrysopterus, skip the mixed species experiment. Took a few minutes for a female to nearly kill a pair of black ocellaris, an orange ocellaris, and pair of maroons in a 300gal. Chrysopterus experiment has been repeated with similar results by other local breeders. Net net: Not good odds of success, but great odds of having your current little buddies being permanently disfigured or killed outright. fwiw: I would have an established QT set up for bluestripes.....and be ready with the standard high power clownfish meds(copper, formalin, etc). May you not need them.

Appears to be a Red variant of Actinia equina. Distribution from the UK http://www.marlin.ac.uk/species/Actiniaequina.htm to South Africa http://www.anthozoa.com/Documents/South%20...s-Acuna2004.pdf Lots of color variations. btw: A note on warm water feeding requirements: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=A...b7ad59ea746160b Abstract Polyps of Actinia equina are the most common sea anemones in the rocky intertidal zone of the Mediterranean coast of Israel, where they occur in one of the southernmost populations of this species in the northern hemisphere. We examined effects of feeding rate on polyp growth at ambient sea temperature for this population. Under laboratory conditions, polyps were left unfed, or were fed with brine shrimp (Artemia) once every 2 weeks, once a week, or twice a week. Of the four experimental treatments, only feeding twice a week resulted in polyp growth; under all other regimes, the sea anemones lost body mass. We conclude that a high rate of feeding is required at sea temperatures in the eastern Mediterranean, where these sea anemones may have high metabolic rates relative to more northern populations.

Regarding the ice probe: IME they don't last for too long under full time duty, but a single on a 2.5g glass was able to keep temps below 70 with lighting, etc: http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/14...i-Tank_shot.JPG In my case, the coating cracked at about the 9month mark.

Here is another RC thread: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.p...threadid=890751

Coldwater is on my list of futures, but some of my former suppliers were bringing in specimens from South America. I'll drop them a note for an update. btw...This thread is an interesting read and you might be able to score a specimen from Coral Sea Online if they still have the relationships in place. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...499#post8493499

Won a smaller but more important battle, got the B&W's breeding on a tile :D 1pr down, 2 to go ;>)

lol....it was not too long ago you could not give them away.

Live Aquaria, go fast if you have $129 budgeted: http://www.liveaquaria.com/diversden/ItemD...5&siteid=20

IIRC Chad down at Reef Science had a few in about 45-60 days ago. Over the years, I had at least 10 species of clowns in with my pizza, none called it home, even a youngish pair of clark's. IME, odds of acceptance is fairly low. fwiw: The species included a few host anything in captivity, black saddlebacks, skunks, etc. Hi Tracy, They can be gorgeous, but I am not aware of them hosting clowns, shrimp, or crabs so I have not had space for one for many years. They sure do look nice Cheers.

Head to page 26: http://www.carlosreef.com/AnemoneFAQ.pdf Nice one: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.p...966#post6318966 One of the common arrivals when buying adhaesivum online: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.p...ight=adhaesivum Cruddy picture of my pizza in the old tank: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.p...550#post8539550 btw: I ordered Adhaesivum and recieved Tapetum on 3 occassions.