Bubbletip Anemone

[Delphinus]

The long and the short of it is sometimes the tentacles bubble up and sometimes they don't. You can have two clonal anemones, side by side, so a situation where two individuals identical in genetics and experiencing nearly identical environmental conditions, and one could bubble up, and the other not.

I don't beleive it is either good, or bad ... in the same vein that it is neither good, nor bad to have a blue car as opposed to a red car. Individuality....

However, that said, I personally do beleive that lighting could be a factor. If you look at the ratio of surface area to volume of a sphere as compared to other shapes such as a cylinder or a cone, for example ... plus in my own experience over the last three years of keeping this species I have noticed more bubble-tips in times of higher lighting over times of lower lighting. When my tank was 3wpg I never saw bubble-tips except after feeding. When my tank was >10 wpg I almost always saw bubble-tips. Now that my tank is 7wpg I see bubble-tips about 50% of the time.

FWIW, of course. I can't offer any objective proof, only speculative reasoning. Thus as with in all cases YMMV and dealer may sell for less...

This topic (among others) was talked to death a few months ago at RC in the unassumingly titled thread "what dose an annime eat?" As I recall the thread gets rather heated at times and it's only towards the end of the thread that the bubble-tips come into discussion. (Man that was a great thread and although it's long I urge anyone interested in anemones take the time to read it, there is some GREAT info in there and it really illustrates the many different approaches people have taken over the years.)

Reef Central Thread: what dose an annime eat??

[ 05 April 2002, 23:20: Message edited by: delphinus ]