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I picked up a small anemone the other day -- white tentacles, purple tips. Maybe a BTA, hard to tell. It's yet to be truly *happy*, but probably because I'm always futzing with it. It doesn't appear to be at risk of meltdown or anything truly tragic.

 

In any case, I'm having the darndest time making it stick to anything. I'd love for it to stick it's foot in a handy hole I have in the rock in the tank, but it just doesn't seem to happen. I've been trying to prop it against the rock with toothpicks (no piercings!) but that hasn't seemed to work. I tried leaving it on the sandy bottom against a small rock hoping it would stick to that... no go.

 

Anyone have tips/ideas? It's in a 5G nano I'm setting up ... would love some advice.

Small, white tentacles, purple tips is frequently Condylactis species, or "Sebae" (H. crispa or H. malu). Bleached BTAs are almost clear.

 

Assuming the specimen was acclimated kindly, does not have damage to its foot, and the water parameters are: 1.025, tropical temp, 8.2pH+, and no ammonia:

 

Since it is not sticking to rocks, glass, etc, you can probably eliminate Condylactis species.

 

Assume it is a bleached "sebae anemone" and wants to attach to a rock under the sand. Also assume the reason the tentacles are short is due to starvation. They shrink as they absorb their resources.

 

If you can post a picture, I am quite sure we can get close to a species ID, but based on data provided and the common traits, you have a real project on your hands to get it to live past 6 months.

 

I hope I am way off and wish you the best of luck.

  It's in a 5G nano I'm setting up ... would love some advice.

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5 gallon tank that you are setting up? Not a good choice. First your water prams have to be great in a small tank like that. If it dies it going to polute that water so fast. Leave it alone, quit messing with it. they will go where they want and if you keep moving him its never going to be happy. There might not even be enough light in that tank.

  • 1 month later...

Crazy woot.

 

So right now in my 5.5 nano I have:

1 two-headed stalk of torch fragged off a frag at my house which was fragged off of steve's

1 youngster-fist sized hammer coral

several orange zoos

a few teal zoos

some nice green mushrooms

1 good size ricordia

1 frag of something blowing around (colt?)

1 small plate coral

1 aforementioned anenome

several stalks of xenia (both peach & brown/white)

2 "large" nassarius snails (1" each)

some hermints

some astreas

some ceriths

1 cinnamon clown (had two, one died during AC outage coupled with overheat during a weekend away from work)

1 tiny neon goby

 

Well, I brought the tank into work perhaps a month ago. A few days before I brought it in, the anemone had STUCK! I was very excited. 'course it went and stuck in a cave so it wouldn't get much light. Well, over time it moved closer to the mouth of the cave so now frequently it's just "pasted" on the front of the rock. Still lots of small tentacles. Still white. Still purple dots on the tips.

 

TODAY I noticed that some of the tentacles looked like they had cyano growing on them. ... but wait, I think to myself. Maybe they're not turning brown from the outside, maybe they're turning brown from the INSIDE! Maybe it's un-bleaching!

 

Will post pic tomorrow, hopefully.

Yanek,

I'm struggling with my Green Long Tenacle Anenome, having shrunk from 6-7" in full bloom to smaller than a tennis ball. I spot feed it and just seems to be hanging on.

The toughest part of the anenomes is that they don't understand where WE want them to go, but where THEY want to go. Most that I have worked with so far, move in the beginning to a dark spot and adventually work their way back out into the lights when they are ready.

I'm just hoping mine will come around, until then just patience.

Howard

Be careful is that is a Condi........they are carnivorous and aggressive. My condi ate my 5" Foxface (and promptly died thereafter) and I was feeding him twice a week.

Be careful is that is a Condi........they are carnivorous and aggressive.  My condi ate my 5" Foxface (and promptly died thereafter) and I was feeding him twice a week.

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More likely the Foxface had trouble before encountering a Condylactis species, fairly weak nematocyst arrangement by anemone standards.

 

If your specimen was a Telematactis species, that is another case entirely. They, along with S. helianthus, are the killer anemones of the Caribbean.

Does it stick to your finger if you touch it? If it doesn't then the nematocysts are probably gone and it's in poor condition. If it's foot and tentacles aren't "sticky" then it's suffering. In a 5, I'd be careful as it's hard to provide enough for the anemone to do well in such a small system, especially with limited lighting possiblilities.

  • 4 weeks later...
good job, did you lick the foot of it to make it stick?  YUMMY!!  :smug:

 

looks good

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eww.... no, but if you'd like some fried Xenia I'd be happy to whip some up for you. Took a stalk around the office the other day but nobody would eat it. Wouldn't buy into it being sushi.

 

Nah, I just gave up, it rolled into that hole in the middle of the tank and stuck eventually. As you can see from the early pictures it was stark white, but within a week it started slowly browning at the tips. Right now (don't have any *recent* pictures) it's yet darker and the tentacles are starting to get a bit pufffy at the end, the purple tips are becoming a litttle purpler. BTA perhaps?

Guest alex wlazlak

in the last two pictures the color is the same as mine. its a seabae. what all do you feed yours? i gave it like a quarter of a shrimp a while back, but whenever i get my hands in my tank i feed it zooplex and it shrivels up and eats it. the things mouth gets huge!

in the last two pictures the color is the same as mine. its a seabae. what all do you feed yours? i gave it like a quarter of a shrimp a while back, but whenever i get my hands in my tank i feed it zooplex and it shrivels up and eats it. the things mouth gets huge!

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I feed it light. :) Every day.

sounds like a condi def not a BTA

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Why do you say that? Granted, I have the world's worst knowledge leading to anemone identification... but this doesn't look like any condi I've ever seen. Of course it's recovering so it's looks may not be what I get in the end. Still it's beginning to color up like my long tentacle sebae at home. I feed that light too. And it gets some flake. Actually, this one at work ate some flake on Wednesday too.

If I had to make an ID:

 

I would eliminate Condylactis species fairly quickly, tentacle arrangement is wrong.

I would eliminate H. malu(sebae), they don't like rocks at all.

 

This would leave H. crispa(LTA, leathery) and E. quadricolor(BTA).

 

If you can see any sort of spotting or dotting(verrucae) on the column of the anemone under the oral disk, you have 100% eliminated BTA.

 

From the little pictures and descriptions, I would say it is H. crispa.

  • 1 month later...

The color continues to improve. Here's a more recent shot.

 

DSC0028.sized.jpg

 

And in general you can continue to browse the gallery for a bunch of newer shots.

Guest alex wlazlak

dang man, that thing cleaned up nice! did you feed it anything? mine didnt change color too much but it did definitly grow though.

dang man, that thing cleaned up nice! did you feed it anything? mine didnt change color too much but it did definitly grow though.

 

No, I'm not one for feeding anemones.

Great Pics Yanek!

My "Rose BTA" has been hiding for months in the back corner of my tank, occasionally moving to where I could see it for a day or two and then back again. Looks just like your pictures being mostly bleached looking. This past weekend, my daughter was pointing out to me the Anenome in the center of the rocks and was thinking how nice, then when I stood up, I "saw" the reflection of the anenome again in the back corner...dang, I'm a dad again, the sucker went and split!!!

Too cool! Now, like you, if I can only convince one of them to come out in front to actually SEE them, would be great! :D

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