Rose Bubble Tip Anemones turning white/pale

[RGS88]

I have a bunch of Rose Bubble Tip Anemones in my tank (66gal). I started out with one (sickly) anemone a year ago and nursed it back to health. Now I have 6 or 8 of these things in my tank... including a couple of baby ones (which I'm apparently lucky as I've heard that its rare for them to spawn in captivity).

I recently changed the bulbs in my tank. I acclimated the tank lighting over several weeks, changing one bulb at a time over several weeks to make sure there was no lighting/wavelength shock. I went from the original bulbs which were skewed to the white end of the spectrum, to a mix of ATI bulbs... blue and coral), which is skewed more towards the blue end of the spectrum.

I've noticed that the Anemones are turning slightly white or pale, especially around the tips.

So I'm trying to figure out that with the recent bulb changes, if the anemones are either (a) getting bleached because of the new lighting/wavelengths from the new bulbs, or (b) the anemones are losing some of their color because the new bulbs are not as intense of a white light as the original bulbs, and are therefore not getting enough light now and I need to increase the hours per day the lights are turned on.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Ross]

Originally Posted by RGS88

or (b) the anemones are losing some of their color because the new bulbs are not as intense of a white light as the original bulbs, and are therefore not getting enough light now and I need to increase the hours per day the lights are turned on.

I feel that this is the case. I tossed a bunch of green bubble tip anemones into my sump (lit with a cheap LED light from walmart) and they turned white. moved one back to the display and it greened up again.

[Myka]

Bubbletip Anemones actually require very little light. They can be kept under normal output fluorescent bulbs provided other conditions are optimal and regular feedings occur. I think the anemones are taking some time to adjust to the new bulbs, what brand did you have before? ATI are known for high PAR bulbs, so even though you went to a bluer spectrum you may indeed have more PAR.

To help the anemones, I would suggest some target feeding of a few Mysis shrimp every couple days for a few weeks. They should color back up.

[RGS88]

Originally Posted by Myka

Bubbletip Anemones actually require very little light. They can be kept under normal output fluorescent bulbs provided other conditions are optimal and regular feedings occur. I think the anemones are taking some time to adjust to the new bulbs, what brand did you have before? ATI are known for high PAR bulbs, so even though you went to a bluer spectrum you may indeed have more PAR.

To help the anemones, I would suggest some target feeding of a few Mysis shrimp every couple days for a few weeks. They should color back up.

I have a Red Sea Max 250 tank. The bulbs were the original 6 Red Sea Max bulbs that came with the tank. They were 3 x 10K and 3 x Actinic. These Red Sea Max bulbs produced a light heavily skewed to the white spectrum. Together these Red Sea bulbs produced a bright white light that lit up the entire room.

After a year I decided to change the original bulbs to a more subdued (calmer) light, and in reading many posts and reef forums, a lot of people use or recommended color combinations of ATI bulbs. So I now use 6 ATI bulbs (combination of coral, blue and purple). This combination now produces a soft blueish/purple look to the tank... and the white light output is substantially reduced.