Anemones
right have finally typed the lot up and need to save it here. this is nearly the final draft and will be checked for grammar tomorrow and pics added and then macca can copyright it. please feel free to leave feedback of anyhing i may have omitted, or got arse about face.
Keeping Anemones.
Introduction.
Before I get into the main piece, I would just like to state that this article is meant as a guide only, anyone wishing to keep anemones should be prepared to do the research required and to attempt to find information from as many sources as possible to get a good, informed idea of their care requirements. I don’t profess to be an expert in the area, but I have kept several species and done my share of research, please excuse any discrepancies in the technical and scientific terms, I’m sure I’ll be contacted to put more than a few things right.
Basic Anatomy.
The anemone is an invertebrate with a fairly crude bodily structure. The pedal base, or foot is adhesive and used to secure the anemone to the chosen substrate and to move the anemone to it’s preferred location. The oral disc or mouth acts as both a mouth and anus. This is surrounded by tentacles, varying in length depending on species. Each of these tentacles contains stinging cells, or nematocysts, which again, vary in strength depending on species. The body and tentacles also contain zooxanthallae, which are photosynthetic organisms. The anemone utilises the waste products of the zooxanthallae for food, hence the need for good lighting.
Anemones in the wild have extremely long, and in some cases, indefinite life expectancies, meaning, theoretically they can live for hundreds of years. This makes the average aquarium life expectancy of established specimens of 18 months extremely shameful. However, in my last 15ish years in the hobby, things have slowly begun to improve, through technological advances in the hobby, education, the internet, cultivation and quality and selection of imports.
Before you decide to buy an anemone.
Many of the pitfalls of anemone keeping can be avoided by restraint from impulse buying. If one were to do the reading and appropriate planning with regards to the requirements of the anemone, then perhaps the retail of dying and inappropriate animals will reduce. Aquarium suitability is important, the rule of thumb amongst reefers is that the tank should be at least 12 months old, so that tank parameters are stable and less likely to fluctuate, and so the reefer has at least the basic knowledge of fish keeping, animal requirements and water chemistry. Anemones are unsuitable for nano tanks, and perhaps a minimum of 3 ft x 18” x 18” is adequate. As usual with regards to stability, the larger the better. You should ensure that you can cater for all the requirements of the anemone, such as substrate, lighting and flow.
All pumps, powerheads and filters should be made anemone proof, intakes and strainers should be covered with sponge, even the smallest gap can prove fatal to a wandering anemone.
Another consideration to be made, should be the suitability of current and future tank mates. Will the anemone you wish to keep host the clowns you have, or are planning to have? Is the anemone big enough to host the clowns? Clowns can attempt to coerce an anemone into inflating to full size, by “bullying” it. This can have opposite of the desired effect and cause the anemone to shrink up and hide until it dies. Ultimately, do you need an anemone, clowns certainly don’t they will happily find surrogate home such as toadstool corals, and will live and breed without a host anemone. Consideration must be made for mandarins, scooters and other blennies. As they like to rest on rockwork they are susceptable to accidentally landing on anemones, especially carpet anemones.
Buying your Anemone.
When buying your anemone it is imperative that you select a healthy animal and therefore see it in the flesh. Any reputable LFS will allow you to place a deposit on an anemone and keep it for you until all effects of importation have subsided, say 5-7 days. If not vote with your cash and feet and find an LFS that will, avoid the temptation to impulse buy, if possible. Just one more week could ensure your anemone gets the best start possible. Warning signs, to look out for, which may indicate an unhealthy anemone include:
Gaping mouth - the mouth of a healthy anemone should not be gaping, an exception may be if the anemone is attempting to expel waste products from being fed.
Torn flesh of foot - leaves the anemone susceptible to infection.
“Bleaching” – generally, anemones are not white. This is a sign that the anemone has expelled it’s zooxanthallae and will not benefit from the products of photosynthesis, and will starve to death.
Anemone floating in the tank – definitely not a good sign, anemone could be pulled into powerheads / filters.
Non reaction to stimuli – when touched or moved when being bagged in the LFS, anemone should react, usually by tensing and / or shrinking.
When introducing, it is important to acclimate the anemone thoroughly. The easiest way to do this is in a food grade plastic bowl and the anemone and LFS water inside this, floated in the tank, either in an unlit sump, or turn the tank lights off. An unopened bag does not allow for gaseous exchange to take place, and plastic bowl allows a more gradual change in temperature, over the next 3 or 4 hours, introduce small amounts of tank water to the bowl. The anemone should then be placed in a suitable spot in the tank for it’s species specific requirements (see individual species requirements).
Unsuitable Anemones.
Recently, on internet auction sites, there has been a profusion of beadlet and snakelock anemones for sale. These are unsuitable for the reef aquarium, beadlet anemones are from the coastline around Britain. They can be acclimated to reef tank conditions, but reproduce at a high rate and soon reach plague proportions. Snakelock anemones are also found around the coastlines of Britain and in the Mediterranean. Also renowned for their rate of reproduction, they have a very powerful sting, which is painful for humans let alone fish, and is said to be more powerful than that of most jellyfish, causing severe rashes.
General anemone care.
Wandering.
Anemones have a very basic nervous system which is not centralised, so they have no brain. They merely respond to external stimuli. If an anemone wanders in the tank it is searching for a location to satisfy an unfulfilled requirement. This is usually one or more of the following: Light, Flow, Food, Substrate and Water Quality. Water quality should be excellent before introducing your anemone. Check the individual requirements for your species of anemone and endeavour to find a spot it may like. Some species may benefit from having a rock cave built for it, so the anemone has it's foot protected. I have found gently massaging the top surface of the anemone, encourages the anemone to grip with it's foot.
It may also be worth trying adjusting flow direction and force until it looks happy. When the anemone has been settled for a couple of days, it may benefit to feed the anemone, to encourage it to stay in place. Care must be taken, as depending on the anemone, it may harm corals it comes into contact with.
Unless the anemone is in danger, do not attempt to move it, it should eventually find a spot it likes. If the anemone is in danger from filter intakes or suchlike and needs to be moved, attempt to move it while it is attached to a rock. Removing a anemone from anything other than a flat surface is extremely difficult and could tear the anemone’s foot and kill it. Try tickling the edges of the foot up with a soft toothbrush, working from the outside of the foot inwards, this could take up to several hours to complete successfully. Some people suggest using an ice cube to “persuade” the foot to lift. I myself would not advocate this method as the foot of the anemone may suffer “burns” from the ice, use only in emergencies.
Feeding.
Despite what many reefers may say, anemones do require food. Food gained from their zooxanthallae is deficient in certain elements, fats and proteins. Some aquarists report good results despite never feeding their anemones, how much food they receive that was intended for fish is debateable. Some clown species will feed their host anemone, by taking large food items and pushing it into the anemone’s mouth. I have witnessed Australian Blue Striped clowns and Clarkii clowns swimming from one end of a 4ft tank to collect a prawn, carry it back the length of the tank, and feed their anemone. Then again I have also witnessed other species rip food out of anemones for themselves. Choice of food can really be any meaty marine based fare, such as cockles, mussels, clams, scallops, silversides, etc. For some reason Lancefish seem to be the preference of most people, however I find that they produce quite a bit of waste for the anemone to expel, this may have to do with finding bones and scales hard for the anemone to digest. I prefer blister packed squid cubes, fresh squid tubes, fresh or defrosted prawns or king prawns. You should see any waste being expelled by the anemone anywhere between 2 – 7 days later, as a brown stringy substance, regurgitated food should be removed from the water.
Anemones can be fed by placing the food gently in the tentacles near the mouth, a healthy anemone should sting the food to get a grip of it and pull the food into it’s mouth, curling around the food. You may wish to keep your hand in to fend off clowns, cleaner shrimps etc from getting a free meal.
Food should not be forced into the anemone’s mouth. If the anemone rejects the food try again a day or so later. How often to feed depends on many factors, such as lighting, species size etc, and can be from 3 times a week, to once a month, trial and error is the order of the day, I feed my RBTA a large king prawn every 10 or so days.
Prawn held in the tentacles of a Rose BTA. Photo cl0wn.
Anemone grabs hold of the prawns and draws it towards it's mouth. Photo cl0wn.
BTA has eaten the prawn. Process takes around a minute. Photo cl0wn.
Anemone health.
Bleaching.
As touched upon earlier, bleached anemones should never be bought. If reefers stop buying “white malu’s”, hopefully LFS’s will stop stocking them. However, bleaching can occur in the aquarium. It is possible for bleached animals to recover, though difficult, and the effects may prove temporary. It is important to keep excellent water quality, and to ensure the anemone gets plenty of food. It may be of benefit to feed more often and with a variety of vitamin enriched food. Benefit may also be gained from changing halide bulbs or T-5 tubes, to encourage new zooxanthallae, obviously care must be taken to raise the lighting when initial changeover takes place, gradually lowering to original height over the course of a few days.
Below bleached anemone sold as a white bubble tip anemone. Photo cl0wn.
The same anemone after months of feeding and improved lighting is actually a sabae. Photo cl0wn.
Dying Anemones.
Unfortunately anemones die, this can be identified by the anemone literally falling apart. Usually the mouth is gaping wide open with innards protruding. It is important that the anemone is removed as soon as possible to prevent the toxins present and rotting flesh from poisoning the whole tank. Net the majority of it out and dispose of, if possible run a small internal canister filter to remove small parts. Change any filter floss, pads or socks as regularly as possible. Place plenty of carbon in a reactor, pop sock or leg of tights in an area of high flow and place a polyfilter in the system. Water changes should also be carried out.
Torn Anemones.
As previously stated, care should be taken to ensure filters, pumps etc in the main tank should be made anemone proof. However, if a anemone should be chewed by equipment in the tank, the equipment should be turned off as soon as possible. The anemone may attempt to free itself, but may need gentle teasing out of the equipment. In the case of external filter it may be possible to assist the anemone by blowing down the outlet hose. Anemones are capable of regenerating from extreme incidents with equipment, but any free floating pieces of flesh should be netted out and precautions for dying anemones above should be followed, and the anemone observed closely.
Reproduction.
Some anemones have male and female animals, however the sexual differences are not know, and other anemones are hermaphroditic. In the wild the male and female anemones reproduce much like corals, in that the female releases eggs and the male sperm, both from the oral disc of the respective sex, when the cells are joined they produce a planula, or free swimming larval stage, this settles on the reef and develops into an anemone. Spawning events have been observed in captive aquaria, however the sex cells become a pollutant. If observed, carbon, polyfilters and water change regimen should be followed. In aquaria anemones are most likely to reproduce by the following means:
Budding. A smaller clone anemone grows on the main body on the parent anemone and eventually moves off the parent body.
Pedal laceration. Small pieces of the pedal disc break off and develop into small anemones.
Binary fission. This is the most commonly observed method of reproduction in aquaria, and most common in Bubble tip anemones (Entamacea Quadricolor). The anemone usually climbs onto two separate rocks, or the tank glass and literally pulls itself in to two separate animals. The two anemones will then curl around the laceration and form a mouth. It has been observed that tank raised clones are more hardy than their wild caught counterparts. Some clones have been sold on, and divided, sold on and divided until the youngest clone is approaching the twentieth generation of the original anemone. Hopefully, the future of anemone keeping lies in the popularity and availability of tank raised BTA clones, if more reefkeepers chose to source and purchase clones from fellow reefers, the reliance on wild collection to supply the hobby will diminish. When I first started in the hobby clones were virtually unheard of, now they are becoming more and more available, and my current RBTA is a clone purchased from a fellow reefer. Anecdotally there have been many reports of BTA’s splitting after being first introduced to the tank, following large water changes, after suffering a small laceration, or other stressful event.
Rose BTA beginning binary fission.
Split anemones will develop their own individual mouths and internal organs within days.
Photos courtesy Beverly.
Youtube time lapse video of anemone splitting.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=sPwi2Q...eature=related
Propagation.
The last method is perhaps a little controversial. It is possible to propagate some species of anemones such as Bubble Tip, Carpet and Haddon’s Carpet Anemones. It is something which should not be attempted by the beginner, and requires a separate holding tank to house the anemones while they heal, this requires heavy skimming and regular water changes. Anthony Calfo has become the foremost authority on anemone propagation after his presentation at MACNA. Literally the anemone is cut in half with sharp scissors or a knife, both halves must be flushed with plenty of salt water and rested in a holding tank where regular water changes performed. The propagated anemones should not be placed in the main tank as the may wipe out the entire stock due to the release of toxins. I am planning on setting up an anemone propagation tank sometime next year.
Youtube video of anemone propagation.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=o7BdqxW4ka0
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