[Delphinus]

Anemone keeping is both an art and a science.

BTA's tend to make ideal "first" anemones because of their broader tolerances in certain parameters.

I generally am offended by the notion of "ranking" species in terms of ease rating or difficulty rating. These rankings are generally wrong anyways IMHO. And greatly oversimplify a pretty complicated scenario. The bottom line is ALL anemones are "high needs" animals, no exceptions. Some are more particular than others though, some are more demanding than others; but a lot of it depends on an individual's attitude. Some are survivors, and some ... well ... aren't.

BTA's do just as badly as other species when first collected. The statistics are very bad for anemones in the first year. This is, I feel, due largely in part to the general reefkeeping public's ignorance towards these animals. For example, people keep insisting on keeping them more than one to a tank. This is very often fatal!!! And guess what happens in dealer's tanks, in distributors tanks, etc. etc. -- chockablock full of stressed out anemones. And stress is contagious.

Thus, the key to successful selection is dealing with a reputable dealer who cares about the well-being of the anemone.

Unfortunately, from what I've seen that more or less eliminates ALL of them. Sorry guys. Prove me wrong. I must say, I have YET to see any retailer who truly loves anemones and cares about their well-being. Most of the time, anemones are second-class citizens.

Your best bet is to find a specimen from a fellow hobbyists tank. Luckily in the case of BTA's, splits are a fairly common occurence and thus it is usually not difficult at all to find a "captive split". These really are the best bets. They have already demonstrated their adaptation to life in captivity.

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This is a snippet from a post I made in the past: (I felt it worthy of repeating)

Don't feel that your fish "need" an anemone -- in captivity, they don't. They're not stressed out without one. The converse is also true, an anemone in captivity doesn't "need" a clownfish. So, don't get an anemone because you have clownfish, and feel that the fish need an anemone. If you do get an anemone, do it because you love anemones and want to care for one, and if you have the clownfish/anemone relationship happening in your tank, then treat that as a happy bonus.

If you want to consider anemones, or even clownfish, there are a couple of books that simply belong on your bookshelf. If you only get one of the following two books, get this first one. "Clownfish" by Joyce Wilkerson. A great read, talks about their natural history, all the different species, how to start breeding them, etc. A great section on anemones in there too. The second book is "A Field Guide to Anemonefish and their Host Sea Anemones" by Drs. Daphne Fautin and Gerald Allen -- the absolute foremost authorities on host anemones. More of a description of the animals in nature, but there is a section about captive care of clownfish. Both are great books and I myself read them time and again.