Magnificent?

[Ryan]

I picked up an Anenome yesterday, wasnt planning to. But I seen it and thought what the heck I will give these clowns 1 more chance. I had previously owned a Sebea and my Ocellaris wouldnt look at it. This Anemone had all the clowns in the tank hosting it so I figured I had a pretty good chance.

Anyway 30 min into the tank my True Perc male was in there and 3 hours after that my Female Ocellaris had given him the boot and taken over. At first I wasnt sure what kind it was but I am pretty sure now its a Magnificent. Its not very big maybe a 6 or 8 inch ball but it it were to open and not fold I am sure it would easily be 12"+.

Also forgive the foam on the K2. The anemone wasnt attached to anything so I turned of my MJ900s with the Sureflow kits and put in the K2 with the foam so I wouldnt have a million pieces of anemone in the morning and it would give it time to adjust. I will probably pull out the foam, leave the K2 and pull the MJ900 with SF kit.

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g79/Ryan_GSP/15%20Gallon/IMG_0837.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g79/Ryan_GSP/15%20Gallon/IMG_0846.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g79/Ryan_GSP/15%20Gallon/IMG_0863.jpg

[cprowler]

Yeah, it looks like a Heteractis Magnifica aka Ritteri.

I hope you have strong lighting, your tank looks fairly deep, if it's not strong enough it will start roaming towards the lighting.

[Ryan]

Tank is 24" deep. Light is 4x 24w T5HO but I also have a 250W HQI MH with a 12.5K bulb here.

[cprowler]

When I moved mine into my 24" tank I had to upgrade from 250w to 400w MH and that just seems to be enough. When the bulbs start getting older it starts to roam.

The sting from them is fairly strong, it has killed many of my corals over the years from touching them when roaming. Some of the more resilient corals do recover but not all. Worse yet is if it gets cough in a power head roaming it releases a toxin that will kill your fish, so be careful.

Thats just my experiences that I have had with mine for the last 5 years, some others may have had a easier time of it.

You should be OK just keep that in mind, you may have to move it closer to the light or upgrade your lighting.

[Delphinus]

Very nice. Just a warning though, you're going to have problems with him wandering right up the rockwork or worse yet the glass.

There are two strategies you HAVE to employ with this species to keep them rooted:

1) They want to be at the top of the reef (which is where they inhabit in nature). If they can sense a path upward, they will move in that direction. As such, they need to sit on a bommie (fancy term for "rock pile" or "column" but look it up for a few examples of what I mean). It's imperative that any direction away from their spot leads down and they can't touch any neighbouring structure that's higher.

2) They are light greedy. Even though what they have may be "enough" to sustain them, they need to know they're in a spot where they get the most. So the best strategy here is to place the bommie from #1 right under a halide. This way they're in the "hot spot" and any movement away from this spot takes to a spot of less light.

I kept this anemone for 8 years and never had a problem with him moving. Although in the end, in a fit of frustration I sold him (it's really hard to do ANYthing with a tank that has a 24" anemone it). Which brings me to my last point - be prepared for massive growth. The one I had was 6" when I bought it, and 18" within, uh, about 6 weeks if I recall correctly. He settled out at 24", which is sort of the reason I ended up with a 30" cube - it was the smallest tank I could do where he couldn't touch the glass from anywhere within the tank - even in a standard 90g tank I had problems with him finding the glass and then deciding that was a better place to be.

Oh and one last cautionary note - handle them very minimally. If disturbed they can release a lot of nematocysts, which you can't see: but will kill off an entire tank of fish within minutes. I had at least 3 complete tank wipeouts everytime I needed to move mine. Nothing can prepare you for that emotional shock of seeing every last fish (except your clowns which are immune) drop dead like that.

[Ryan]

Thanks Tony. The tank itself is only 20x20x24H with 1 rock collumn. So far he has tucked his foot under a ledge and is staying put (knock on wood). Hopefully he doesnt move or if he decides to he waits until spring when I upgrade and he can have his own tank.

[Stevey87]

I got a very special shallow tank that is 12" deep and has Stichodactyla Gigantea and it's the only invertebrae in the tank other than snails, pods. It's very demanding especially when it comes to lights. Out of the three common carpet anemones in the hobby, gigantea, mertensii, haddoni, I read that this carpet anemone always live in very shallow water or tide pool or something. So I have 150W 6500K MH. Might upgrade to 250W later but don't think I need it yet. When i saw it in the store it seemed to be in good condition but was climing towards the light on side of the glass because there were no rocks in that tank. In my tank the anemone doesn't try to go on rocks or climb on the glass and it's eating well. I guess it's healthy so far and I hope it stays that way.