Carpet Anemone?

[Delphinus]

Gigantea for sure! That's awesome. Before I had one of these, I had to wait *4 years* for one to arrive in a Calgary store. There was a period of time from about late 1999 to early 2004 where I was checking ALL the stores every week (I'll try not to turn this into my usual "why is anything I'm looking for, hard to find" rant. ). These guys are really my favourite, they are a very beautiful anemone (IMO). They are a natural symbiont for both ocellaris and percula. They don't grow as big as haddoni and they are not voracious eaters of fish (I feed mine mysis but they eat every piece of fish food I offer - right down to tiny things like Cyclops-eeze and crumbs of flake food. But I target feed them mysis, which seems to do well for them). In fact, I used to have a mandarin that would sleep at night right under the "canopy" of one of the carpets - no way would that have happened with a haddoni (haddoni's are sticky like super glue - they don't really go out of their way to catch fish, but if a fish stumbles into them, they won't easily let go - most fish end up being meals. Although haddoni's tend to come in a nice range of colours - not much beats a "fire engine red" haddoni ). The tentacles of gigantea tend to be longer, giving the anemone something of "shag carpet" look to them, and it's really cool watching the tentacles wiggle and vibrate (particularly at feeding time).

Anyhow, I say don't be too hard on your wife. Although not at all what it was sold to her as (so maybe a bit "boo" on the store - but not your wife!!) - this is something of a "holy grail" of carpets.

Ok, I realize I'm geeking out a bit. Sorry

Anyhow the one drawback to gigantea is the delicateness for the first couple of weeks. If you can "make it" to past a month, odds are pretty good that at that point, it's a bulletproof specimen that will weather just about anything. But if you do get to that point, you're in fairly rare company. Time and again I read about reefkeepers over at RC losing one of these during that transitionary period, people have asked me what's my secret, and unfortunately I think there isn't a secret. You either get lucky or you don't. Basically, use common sense and keep your water params in check, feed the anemone and hope for the best. I really do think that the problem lies in the upstream chain (collection/wholesale/shipping/etc.) and all we can do as retail consumers is hope we've gotten one that isn't too far gone by the time we get them.

From everything you've described so far, it sounds like you're off to a promising start. If anything, try to resist the urge to overfeed for the first week or two, but do offer it things like a little mysis every couple of days maybe, and it takes it down and keeps it down, then that's a good sign.

Mine are in a 40g frag tank, unfortunately I don't have many pictures because at 24x24x12 it is somewhat challenging to get good photos of. Here are some photos that I do have (not the most current though - I've gotten lazy on the tank photos). You can't see the BTA's in this shot but my one BTA is in the left back corner behind the brown carpet and the RBTA is in the right back corner behind the green carpet.



You can just see the tips of my rose in the background of this one:


Apparently I need to get some photos showcasing the BTA's! Whoops!

[bassman]

Wow! Those are awesome pics! I can't wait to see mine that full.

It looks like the wife may have stumbled onto something good here! The best part? She paid $12.00 for it!!! So the price was right that is for sure. Sometimes un-educated pet store staff works for the good.

I will keep an eye on everything in the tank, not over feed the anemone and hope for the best. So far so good, it's looks happier and healthier every day!


Thanks for all your help, I really appreciate it. I will post some more pics as the days go by.

[Delphinus]

$12? Wow that's awesome.

I thought I had it good when I found my brown one for $20 - but Nate (I got it from Big Als when they were still around) said they just landed that cheaply. I was happy

Anyhow best of luck and yes please do continue sharing pictures!

[bassman]

So far so good.

It's been 12 days since acclimation and the anemone seems to be doing fine.

It has not moved from the spot I originally placed it in and opens up nicely everyday. It seemed to be larger every day at first but the growth has slowed a fair bit now.

I fed it a very small chunk of a silverside the day after acclimation. It took to the food right away and did not spit it back out later. I have fed it one more time since, 2 days ago. Same thing again, just a small chunk of a silverside. And just as last time it took the food right away and retained it.

It's hard to see the mouth clearly on a regular basis but it does appear to be just slightly open most of time with what looks like a little bubble coming out of the one side of the mouth. The bubble has a purple stripe running down the middle of it. Is this normal for this type of anemone? It almost looks like bait, the purple is very bright.

[Delphinus]

12 days is a pretty good run. You're almost out of the danger zone from a timetable perspective. (I hope I'm not jinxing this by saying it!!!!!)

The mouth sounds normal. All the ones I've ever seen have had that little purple thing. It's kinda cool isn't it? I can't remember but I don't think haddoni's have it at all (or at least, not all do), so that also is a sort of a "distinguishing feature."

I feed mine mysis (although really they eat anything I offer - flake food, cyclops-eeze of all things - you'd think it would be too small - but no they seem to have a vigourous feeding response to it).

I anxiously await a new picture

[bassman]

Thanks,

Yes that purple thing is cool. I like watching the extensions wave around in the current, it's very relaxing, almost hypnotic.

I will get some pics later today once it opens up more.

How often would you recommend feeding it for now? I feed my other anemone once a week.

[Delphinus]

I have clowns in mine, that hardly venture more than a couple inches from the anemones, so a lot of the food I try to offer the fish ends up getting eaten by the anemones. So I don't really "target feed" my carpets except for occasionally, but they are getting a little bit of food basically every day. If I didn't have the fish in there I would probably target feed at least once or twice a week, I reckon..