ANEMONES

[Samw]

Oh yeah, back when I first started my reef tank, I also had 2 thriving brown BTAs with a thriving Sebae anemone that I had to eventually sell after it outgrew my tank in about a year. They all stayed on the same rock. They were under 110w of power compacts.

[Buccaneer]

I have a RBTA and GBTA in my tank and no aggression that I can see between them ... the RBTA did wander around for about a month when we first got it before it settled down but is OK now for the last few months.

[Son Of Skyline]

Originally Posted by Buk_A_neer

I have a RBTA and GBTA in my tank and no aggression that I can see between them ...

I've done the same and I never had any problems. I haven't mixed two different species of anemones tho.

[Jaws]

I have 6 different anemones, three different species in a newly aquired 90G tank that has been operational with the previous owner for a little over a year now. I don't plan on keeping it this way but they all seem to get along fine. No problems yet but I don't imagine that will last.

[Delphinus]

Originally Posted by Son Of Skyline

I also read of many cases where it works, even in nano tanks.

Ugh ... that's crazy. Anemones .. at least the Indo Pacific hosting species .. don't really belong in nano's. Not long term anyhow - there may be exceptions when they're smaller / juvenile, but the bottom line is none of the 12 or so species truly stays small (assuming it's healthy). Even BTA's can approach 12" in diameter and I consider them to be one of the smaller hosting species.

Personally I'd rather take the "better safe than sorry" approach and avoid mixing anemones.

Agreed, ditto.

Remember that the problem with "potential" agression between animals is just that ... potential. The only way to guarantee you don't have a problem is to not do it. That's not quite the same thing as saying "you WILL have problems if you do go ahead." It's a risk or a gamble, if you will.

My own story to add to the "pile of evidence" :

I too have two BTA strains in my tank right now, my old BTA clones that I've had for years and a rose which I picked up earlier this year. I kind of added the rose against my better judgment on this one because I have long felt that comptetition between anemones is a potential. When I added my RBTA, after about a week one of the BTA's would seek it out and sort of cover it. I can't say for certain but I think it was aggression. The other two clones in there never sought out the RBTA, only this one. I ended up having to pull it out and sell it. The rose now has warped tentacles where it was contacted by the other BTA. It's doing fine otherwise, has grown to about three times its original size but it is a bit disappointing about the wonky tentacles.

That's one form of aggression, the physical contact. The other form is less easy to quantify. One specimen may just simpy start to deteriorate. This is what's referred to as "chemical aggression" because there's no physical contact between the two, but it's there nonetheless. This can be as simple as shedding nematocysts or it could be some other form of allelopathy. Or it could be complete hocus-pocus ... I think most of the evidence is anecdotal but I think it's generally well accepted that there could be something to this theory. It makes sense to me that this could be a strategy among those species that clone (e.g. BTA's) because they seem to to want to form colonies and in that sense maybe a colony would want to protect its own genetic lineage (or whatever). I'm probably reaching a bit but that's my theory anyhow

Anyhow I guess my only point is that it can be tried, but you should expect some form of interactions eventually and be prepared to take action if necessary.