Quote:
Originally Posted by Finsky
You have my apology as sometimes it is difficult to communicate via the written word versus spoken word. Sometimes I write before thinking when excited about things i.e. all things aquarist. I am sure you are a decent person and I get the impression, an advanced aquarist. I do want to apologize again to you and this thread and hope you will forgive me.
I would like to add my reason for listing the liquid foods and vitamins is that I think this may be a route to go with a weakened anemone that is not up to taking solid foods. Of course, the aquarist would obviously want to keep an eye on water quality.
I do think that lighting, current, water quality, placement i.e. rock versus substrate, feeding, etc. all have a part in an anemones health.
For myself, I have found Heteractis magnifica to be the most difficult anemone to care for.
For my Stichodactyla gigantea, I prepared a tennis sized vertical hole in the middle of my live rock underneath the right 150 watt metal halide. At the bottom of the five inch hole was smooth live rock. The bottom of the hole went horizontally off to the left. I moved a green bubble tip from that place by using a frozen block of razor clam to losen it's grip. I then moved it to the left side of the tank in a crevice in the live rock above the two green and two red rose Bubble Tips(used to be one of each until the green and red split) that were also there. Almost instantly the Tomato clowns started nudging it gently and now it is doing much better than the right side.
This left a place for me to place a six inch Stichodactyla gigantea I aquired from Petco. I turned off the pumps and after acclimating guided the anemone down over the hole. It stuck rather quickly and at first was anchored half on the inner side of the hold and half of the bottom of the hole. I has since spread out to cover the entire width of the hold and has grown to about eight inches or more.
I have two 3,250 gph Hydor Mag 8's which are place high in the tank ends. This creates a circulation that is high at the surface and lessens gradually towards the bottom of the tank. Lighting is a 60" Marine Pro Lighting System with four 54 watt T-5's and two 150 watt double ended metal halides.
I do agree that it is possible that an anemone may not be up to hosting a clownfish and may not even be able to "anchor" itself to substrate and/or rock.
Addendum: My female Tomato clownfish did bring one of two Hikari Algae wafers into the larger red rose buble tip anemone?
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Finsky,
Communicating via written word over the net can be interesting to say the least. Its very easy to misunderstand what a person meant when reading their posts. Over 80% of human communication is via non verbals such as tone, inflection, and body language.
Short version is no problem on my end, apology accepted.
You bring up some interesting points in this post.
I’ve never tried adding vitamins or liquid foods when trying to bring back a weakened anemone. What vitamins or liquid foods are you using or advocating? I honestly am not up to date on what vitamins or liquid foods are currently popular or available, so your input here would be greatly appreciated, (seriously).
I also agree completely that water quality and general conditions of the system the anemone is being kept in are all paramount to anemone health and well being.
I’ve only tried S. gigantea once. A local store that I have a good relationship with had one come in that started to go down hill and they asked me to try and rescue it with the understanding that if it survived, I would buy it. Sadly, it didn’t.
IMO, (based on what I’ve read), S. gigantea is the most difficult anemone to keep. The fact that you obtained yours from Petco of all places and have had it for 6 months speaks volumes.
I’m also very intrigued by how you set up the place for the gigantea to attach.
Rather than derail this thread any further, could you please start a new thread and detail everything you’ve done and pictures of your anemones and set up?
I’d love to keep an S. gigantea some day but feel I need to do more research and would love to see what your doing.
Thanks,
Nick