Two Malu Anemones - Friends or Enemies?

[ChrisPeacock]

I am building a new 4ft by 2ft (100 US gallon) tank with 20 US gallon refugium to rehouse my purple Malu anemone. (S)he has outgrown my 22 gallon nano reef tank, and is spreading out and killing a lot of other things in the tank. So I think (s)he can be considered pretty agressive!

I was thinking that one of the white Malus which one of my LFS regularly gets in would make a striking contrast in the new tank (and BTW, they're not bleached, they're genuine white Hawaiian anemones with dark purple tips to their tentacles). But I don't want my artistic ambitions (!) to trigger chemical warfare in my new tank. I am not sure whether the anemones (presumably) being different sub-species would make things better or worse.

Has anyone tried keeping two Malus in a 4ft by 2ft tank, and if so, were the results disastrous, or did they cohabit peacefully?

BTW, the purple Malu currently hosts two ocellaris clownfish, who will move with it (if I can catch them!).

Many thanks in advance for any help or opinions which anyone has.

[clown fanatic]

im not a pro at this stuff but ive never known anemone's to be friends, if your tank is 100 gallons i wouldnt consider it to be a problem as long as they dont latch onto the same rock, i have a condy and a LTA in my 25 and theres been no problems here, BTW could you post a picture?? good luck

[ChrisPeacock]

Many thanks, CF. The tank is eventually going to house a Regal Angel (which I've read is relatively reef-friendly) and one of the more anemone-friendly butterflies (still doing my research on that). However, there's no telling how individuals will behave, so I would want to provide the second anemone with some clownfish protection.

To avoid warfare with my existing clownfish pair, would I be best going with another couple of juvenile ocellaris, or should I go for a completely different species of clownfish (e.g. Clarks)?

Here's a pic:


That's nine months old - he's a lot bigger now, and I'm not sure I can bear to show the destruction to surrounding corals. But when he moves (his backside is covering the glass at the moment!), I'll try to get another shot.

[Fcamdog]

clarkii are the only clowns that would normally host in a H. malu. So go with the clarkii.

[traveller7]

Take a picture of the back while you can. Closeup of the verrucae as well.

fwiw: What kind of lighting do you have in your tank and how long have you had that nice yellow leather?

[z_rivers]

i wouldnt mix 2 kinds of clowns in the same tank unless its around 180gallons. clarkii can get pretty aggressive and claim the whole tank for themselves.IF you end up putting more than 2 clownfish in a tank AND the anemones are on opposite ends of the tank, i would say go with another pair of ocellaris or skunk clowns. both species are pretty docile and should live together if not always in contact.

[ChrisPeacock]

Scott: The yellow leather was a year old when that photo was taken. Most beautiful yellow I've ever seen in a leather. Sadly, nine months' later, he's now dead, along with my clam, my open brain, my flame scallop, my beautiful blue sponge and two acroporas.

I went away for two weeks in August, leaving my neighbour in charge of the tank (she's looked after it a couple of times in the past, and it's been OK on my return). But during those two weeks we had one of our rare spells of hot weather - temperature in the upper 80s. She had no instructions from me on how to deal with excessive temperature (i.e. in the absence of a chiller, turn off the metal halide). So I would guess the temperature was up in the 90s. I returned to a tank full of dead and dying invertebrates.

Purple bryopsis is now taking over the vacant spaces, and we can't get Super Turbos (the only thing that seems to eat the stuff) from Florida because of the hurricanes. This is one of those times in an aquarist's life when you just have to grit your teeth and hang on!

Miraculously, Malcolm (the Malu) seems to have thrived, along with (even more miraculously) two large Tubastrea colonies, and (rather less miraculously!) the large colonies of Briareum and Xenia, plus one small colony of purple Pocillopora and my treasured colony of pink/blue Ricordea. That's it - everything else gone!

Malcolm stinging everything in sight is really the last straw, hence the new tank. I think lighting is a factor in this - the nano has a 150W 10,000K metal halide and 24 watt actinic T5 over two sq.ft. of surface (87 watts per sq.ft.). I know people who say their Malus sit themselves right underneath 250W halides, so the new tank will have two 250W 10,000K metal halides and two 54W actinic T5s over 8 sq.ft. of surface. That's 76 watts per sq.ft., but the 250Ws will have more penetrating power than the 150W, and there will be sand directly underneath one of them, whereas there's a column of rock directly under the 150W in the nano.

Will post a shot of Malcolm's verrucae in a day or two - are you thinking he's mis-identified? Pretty confident he's not H. crispa or H. sebae - the tentacles are too far apart - and virtually certain he's not M. doreensis - column too white, verrucae pattern too irregular.

[keefsama2003]

dont put clarks in there i did that in the same size tank and my occell's are in the top corner and dont go farther than 3inches from that spot the clarks run the tank and dont let them go anywhere they have chased the occels in the overflow i cant count how many times. its like putting pitbulls in with yorkies if you know dogs it just wont work as well as it should it will work but t hose occel wont have any anenome the clarks will have them both

[traveller7]

Originally posted by ChrisPeacock
Will post a shot of Malcolm's verrucae in a day or two - are you thinking he's mis-identified? Pretty confident he's not H. crispa or H. sebae - the tentacles are too far apart - and virtually certain he's not M. doreensis - column too white, verrucae pattern too irregular.

CP,

Not at all, I am hoping you can add photos of a more uncommon anemone to the RC reference area We are short of good verrucae photos of H. malu, H. crispa, M. doreensis, etc. We have plenty of photos which don't help us positively ID but are great to look at ;>)

Bummer to hear about the losses, especially after success with the yellow leather.

Best wishes on the new species set up, I think you'll enjoy it.

[ChrisPeacock]

Thanks, Scott. Here's a shot of Malcolm's underside taken tonight:

If you look at the line of verrucae around the edge of the oral disc, you can see where a number of them are transforming into his next ring of tentacles. And if you look over to the top left, you can see a couple of small, stringy tentacles which are recently-formed and still growing.
Just for good measure, here's a shot of his topside, with Claudia and John (his clowns) thoroughly teed-off by the flash just when they're trying to get some sleep:

[traveller7]

Very nice pictures thanks for taking the time to take them, post them, and share the lot

fwiw: I have one that is 18"(45cm) across which looks very similar to yours but I have not seen a malu nearly that large so I have assumed mine is a very dark brown crispa. Maybe I'll break down and buy a camera or have a pro take some of mine soon

[manderx]

looks like a crispa to me. no such thing as H. sebae as far as i've ever heard. look in wilkerson's clownfish book for a good pic of a real malu (which is far more sparse and has a distinctly different row of tenatcles around the edge). there's alot of confusion over crispa vs malu because crispas used to be classified as malus ~30 years ago (i know this sounds questionable so i'm digging around for the documentation).

[manderx]

ok, found it.

from: http://biodiversity.uno.edu/ebooks/ch1.html#crispa

Original description As Actinia crispa, from specimens collected in the Red Sea

Other names previously used include Radianthus kuekenthali (by Mariscal 1970, 1972, Uchida et al. 1975, Moyer 1976), R. malu (by Allen 1972, 1973, 1975), R. ritteri (by Allen 1978), H. macrodactylum (by Cutress and Arneson 1987)

this allen guy seems to be quite the authority on things, with his name on alot of the latin names and also a co-writer of this book. even though he called it R. malu and not H. malu, you can certainly see how it could be thrown into the mix, especially with importers and wholesalers who aren't exactly precise with their taxonomy.


now, i know you're going to look at that crispa pic and say 'but it has way more tentacles than mine', so it can't be the same. if you look in my gallery at the 'anemone cube', you'll see my crispa (the tentacles on it used to be longer, but the female maroon likes to bite tips off for some reason), which started off as one of those cute white w/purple tipped anemones that you see in the store. after a while, it started looking exactly like yours, with long stringy and sparse tentacles (except without the purple). on mine, the tentacle appearance varied greatly, where they can look sparse one day, but then dense another based on how expanded/contracted it is. it's been buried in the sand where you couldn't see the column at all (like the pic in the book i linked) and also behind a rock reaching up towards the light like in your pic. at the moment, it's column snakes through the rockwork and is attached to the bottom glass.

so, i could be crazy and completely wrong, but that's how i see things...just make sure you check out the pic in wilkerson's clownfish book before you completely discount me and still think it's a malu. but whatever you do, don't go by the IDs on dealers web pages.

[illcssd]

well, back to your original ?, the "hawaian sebaes" are actually condy anemones, and are not hosting anemones, there are no clowns in the pacific. also they are known to eat clowns that host in them.

[phender]

Originally posted by illcssd
well, back to your original ?, the "hawaian sebaes" are actually condy anemones, and are not hosting anemones, there are no clowns in the pacific. also they are known to eat clowns that host in them.

Wow, I'm not sure anything in this answer is correct. If the anemones the LFS is bringing in are from Hawaii, they are most likely H. malu. Condy anemones are from the Atlantic Ocean and not from Hawaii. H. malu can and do host clarki clowns in nature. They don't host clowns in Hawaii because there are no clowns in Hawaii. Clowns are only from the Pacific, but their range does not extend to Hawaii.

Since the purple anemone in Chris' tank IMO is H. crispa and from what I understand, H. malu is an aggressive anemone, I would not suggest that he try to mix them together.

[marrstarr]

Well I live in Hawaii so I can tell you for sure that H. Malu are not condy anemones. We do not have clown fish here, but they do host juvenile Domino Damselfish. Outside of Hawaii they host clarkiis.

[COreefer]

Good thread and good pics...that is definitely H. Crispa. Good oportunity to have a thread in which folks can make a definite comparison.

[z_rivers]

holy cow thread resurrection