New carpet
 

I'm not 100% convinced of my attempt of an ID, but I think I've stumbled across a Stichodactyla gigantea today. :cool:

http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/t...newcarpet1.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/t...newcarpet2.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/t...newcarpet3.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/t...newcarpet4.jpg

The tentacles vibrate like crazy, the oral disk tends to fold up instead of lay flat, and the verrucae are not only present and visible, but they are purple (S. haddoni tend to have verrucae that are not a contrasting colour). This guy is TINY, about 6", so hopefully time will tell for sure. It is a very rigorous specimen (attaching to substrate instantly and robustly), which I hope bodes well for its health. It has already captured a few stray pieces of mysis when I fed my fish.

Wish me luck!

Nice find Tony :mrgreen: ... where did you get him ? ... there was a small ritteri at Ocean yesterday

Looks good!

Hey, way to go!! Looks like an accurate ID from the pics! About time, eh?? :biggrin:

I guess that would be a shag variety and not a low loop carpet eh Tony :razz:

Congrats :exclaim:

Woo- HOOOO! Finally, man - great news! Glad you came across this one, it looks just excellent. And just a baby... :biggrin:

Can't wait to see what colour it gets to be. This is in your 75?

Thanks guys. Yeah, can you tell I'm a child of the 70's? I dig shag carpets :lol:

Found it at Big Al's. (Thanks Nate!)

Today I am noticing a subtle yellow to it .. tips, and around the mouth area. It's also opened up a wee bit more. I'll try to get some better pics this afternoon.

It's not blue or purple, but beggars can't be choosers ... of course it's much more important that it be healthy than what colour it is, but nevertheless I think it could turn into something interesting. :cool:

looks good!

Looks great Tony :cool: What tank do you have it in? Does it get its own tank too? :wink:

Christy :)

So whats so special about this particular anemone that made you look for it this hard?

Steve

Steve,
Carpets don't ship too well at all, not to mention that most suppliers tend to ship BTA's now as there are the latest fad. It's been at least 4 months since I have seen a healthy looking carpet around here, so I'm sure that has a lot to do with Tony's excitment. Also it's pretty much a sure host for percs and most other clowns :mrgreen:

so isn't what you wrote just more reason not to buy them? you don't see people running out and buying Moorish idols because they don't ship well and are short lived.

but aside from the rant I was really wondering what sets this one off from other carpets and made Tony obsess with finding this particular species. (I know he has been looking for it for a long time)

Steve

Nate should get transfered out here.... whadda ya say Nate?

Steve, I don't know what to tell you ... why obsess over anything? Some things excite some people, other things excite other people. I don't know about right or wrong. It's a fine line. I'm sure you'll agree with me that there are many things in the hobby that shouldn't be attempted by "just anyone" but if you endeavour to recreate the correct environment, you may just do well by things. Clams, SPS, etc., these can be finicky setups but that's not to say it's impossible to have success with them ... I feel the same way about anemones. Challenging at time, for sure; but certainly not beyond our grasp if we continually try to challenge ourselves.

So why obsess over a carpet? I don't know? I just do. :redface:

This one, for me, is a particularly exciting find to me, because it is something rare (at least by me, I think it is) and not only that, this one appears to be healthy and doing well. Another point of interest is that there are two species of host anemones that are natural symbionts for BOTH percula and ocellaris. This is one of them, and the other is H. magnifica (ritteri's).

So anyhow .. I hope this makes some sense? I'm not sure. At any rate, anemones just happen to be a favourite topic for me.

...

I took a few pictures of the verrucae today. Unfortunately the pictures didn't show the contrasting purple all too clearly, so I had to kind of play around in Photoshop with exposures and whatnot to try to make the picture show correctly. Unfortunately this is the best I could come up with:

http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/t...s/verrucae.jpg

Is it in your SPS tank Tony ?

Also is it possible for that small Ritteri @ Oceans to survive with my 2 BTA's ?

Awesome Tony. Can't wait to see it.

Also it's expanded quite a bit more today. Here's another shot.

http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/t...arpet-day2.jpg

PS. Are these pictures showing up for anyone? The annoying thing is, they're not showing up for me! But the URL's look correct, maybe Shaw has got some kind of server issues (or maybe my PC has issues?)

no.

thats cool, I was just wondering if there was something special about this carpet, like weird coloring ect.. I know all about obsessing over silliy things.. with me its equipment :rolleyes: :mrgreen:

Steve

Shaw seems to have corrected their server "issues" now..

You don't say :razz: :mrgreen: :lol:

:biggrin:

Pics show up fine and it looks good!

Dave

Sure looks like one of those white shag carpets. :biggrin: :razz:

Not gonna steal anyone's thunder, but this anemone's bigger sibling has just found a good home too. :mrgreen: I assume a new thread is to come shortly :cool:

Tony,

How big do you expect that carpet to get?

According to Fautin and Allen their max size in the wild is around 500mm, or roughly 20". I think they can get bigger than that but not much. S. haddoni and S, mertensii are much larger (800mm/32" and 1m/40" respectively).

One last shot .. this is from two days ago.

(It's a little large so I won't imbed it)

http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/t...arpet-day3.jpg