Anenomes dying

[ron101]

I have kept a pink tipped bta for over 2 yrs now and the previous owner 2 yrs before that. It split on him once and me three times.

The only hiccup that I had was one of the clones did not seem to form properly. It moved under a rock, never came out, and deteriorated. I discarded it after a week or so since I did not want mass tank contamination.

My tank is a 90 gal with 2x175W MH and 2x40W NO Actinics and a remora pro with an oversize pump. NO3 and NH3 have never been detectable. From my experience I would call bta's moderately difficult to keep.

I think the main factor with my success was obtaining a confirmed healthy specimen. Emily's point about not buying anemones from LFS is one of the best made in a long time. Either they do not ship well, or proper collection techniques (or both) are not used but the bulk of deaths that I read about involve a specimen purchased from a LFS within a few months.

I cannot comment on three dawgs' system' adequacies since I don't know the details but IMO the mixing of multiple species and the timeframe of purchase (health specimen from LFS?) are the two factors that I would look at.