"The Mudskipper and The Hyena" - Discovery channel

[Delphinus]

Did anyone catch this on Wild Discovery last night? It's a documentary about life in the intertidal mangrove flats on Kenya's north coast.

Fantastic. I taped it when it repeated last night. That's a keeper for sure.

My jaw fell when I saw that field of ritteri anemones H. magnifica and hoardes of skunk clowns. Ritteri's are amazing anemones, my personal favourite I think, so of course this would strike a chord for me. Also interesting to see them exposed at low tide, I had heard that sometimes ritteris are exposed at low tides but I had never seen it before.

But equally spectacular was the octopus walking along the beach. They intentionally strand themselves in tidal pools at low tide, so that they can feast on the unsuspecting mud crabs that come out at low tide. Once they have their fill, they go back to the ocean, and thus, the beach walk. Utterly amazing, to see this octopus out of the water, just walking along like it's nobody's business. I guess it shouldn't surprise me so much, I have heard stories about people keeping octopus, discovering sometimes that during the night the octopus had escaped the tank, walked across the room, pretty much eaten everything out of another tank, and then walking back to the original tank and letting itself back into that tank. I always thought this was a bit far-fetched and possibly urban legend ... but umm ... after seeing this, I can see how it could happen... Yeah, I don't think I'm ready to try caring for an octopus in MY tanks ... smile.gif

Well, OK, realistically, everything they showed was spectacular.

[ 21 June 2002, 07:44: Message edited by: delphinus ]

[Troy F]

I saw this too, it was an awesome bit of wildlife movie making. Did I read in another post you have Heteractis magnifica? If so, how long, how much light, how's it been in general? They are my favourite too.

[Delphinus]

Indeed I do, you can see a picture of it here: http://members.shaw.ca/reefs/delphinus.htm (This is a webpage that AJ_77 has put together to me, with the one picture I have ever made public of my tanks. I need to get some more pictures going!)

I have had it since April last year, so approx. a year and three months now. It has been a very robust anemone for the most part, although it did give me a scare a few months ago. I'm not sure what I did that suddenly stressed it, but I suspect it was a combination of several factors. 1) its tank is a 50g tank which is not very large, and it was sharing the tank with two BTA clones. A year ago I didn't know what "diffuse competition" was; I do know it now, and I would never anymore recommend placing more than one anemone into one system, for fear that they start battling it out chemically. The BTA's are now in a different tank (I gave one away and held on to one for myself). 2) It was no longer receiving direct sunlight, after the spring equinox. In the wintertime, when sun rays are nearly horizontal coming in from the south, they come into my family room and light the tank. The anemone just goes nuts in the direct sunlight! There's no question in my mind this is a light-loving animal. It sits directly underneath a 175W halide (the bulb is about 3",4" above the water surface, the anemone sits right atop a coral bommie in the upper half of the tank). 3) I had cut back on feeding it, because I was fearing it was growing too quickly. In retrospect, it was not a good idea to try to starve it into submission.

By removing the BTA's into another tank, removing some corals that may have been blocking some sunlight, and by feeding the anemone 2-3 times a week with mysis; it has definitely improved once again. I would really like to get this anemone into a bigger tank, something with a nice front-to-back dimension. Maybe a 90g with a 36"x24" footprint, or a cube tank, would serve well as a species tank.

For the most part, it takes as much current as it can get (it seems to adore current as much as it adores light), as much light as it can get, and as much planktonic-like food (mysis, krill, etc.) as it can get, seem to be general rules of thumb.

PS. After having seen that documentary this week, I now would like to try to get a surge tank going for this anemone. I have a feeling it would not disapprove of a surging current.. :D

[ 21 June 2002, 22:59: Message edited by: delphinus ]

[Troy F]

Great work Tony, that is fantastic. Hopefully with continued diligence in husbandry you can be one of the few success stories with this species. Do you have many corals sharing the system?