Anemone has finally done what I wanted.

P

pkc

Joined
17 Oct 2008
Posts
632
Reaction score
16
Location
Brisbane-Queensland-Australia
A few months back I got a couple of quadricolor bubble anemones and one was a red one.
The South East Queensland aquarium society does roughly 8 trips a year to the sunshine coast and the guys were after a couple of anemones.
Only three spots up there have abundant anemones after all the rains we have had so far these last three years, the silty and lower salinity waters has killed them in massive numbers at our regular sites, so luckily there are other spots and this was the first time I have taken the others to this particular spot.
Our club pres and myself are the only ones who go there normally.
The red one is the only bubble anemone that I have not taken the time to make it split.
When I got them commercially they were worth to much to play with, so for some years now I haven’t done any of that and with this system I made, it can achieve anything at all.
For the last two months I have been plying it with food as I have always done to make bubble tips divide.
Most will divide each week to 10 days, this one got to nearly 14 inches before the dam thing divided.
It was this close to getting rid of it as I have a very dumb 30 millimetre imperator in there and I was worried the twit would get stung.
It’s in there to achieve adult colours at a tiny size.
Any way the slow poke finally divided.
This is it pigging out.
fed-large-bubble-_zps58f0971e.jpg

Waiting for food as usual.
large-red-bubble-_zps566bc4f4.jpg

The youngster.
small-red-bubble-_zps8f9af219.jpg

This thing was so big it was killing my acans.now I can get rid of it.
The quadricolor as is with some other anemones, has a very special attribute, they have no actual life span, and unless they are killed the original lives forever.
The oldest documented evidence of one in the museums literature passed onto me said ,it was estimated to be over two hundred years old.
 
It is amazing that they split so often my green bubble tip has split three about once every 6 months so far, maybe because I don't feed it directly. I hear what you saying about them stinging everything they can be a real menace.:)
Those are really stunning anemones.
 
Its nearly killed two acans that it covers, oh well, its done now I can get rid of it.
I use small squeeze bottles to feed everything.
I am a type 2 diabetic and I use a sweetener called sugarless, the used bottles I use for my feeding of the aquariums.
One has tiny sized foods for the top tank and the other has slightly larger food pieces due to mainly fish in the one below.
I squeeze each bottle over the anemone a few times per day so it gets planktonic foods and larger chunks, if I am at home and it gets a lot of food that way.
I use the aquariums salt water when mixing up my foods and add enough pure pool salt to the mix to get it at least three times the salinity of the ocean, so the food does not go off out of the fridge for a couple of days sitting next to the aquariums.
 
Mc said:
It is amazing that they split so often my green bubble tip has split three about once every 6 months so far, maybe because I don't feed it directly. I hear what you saying about them stinging everything they can be a real menace.:)
Those are really stunning anemones.
Click to expand...

I use to breed green bubble tips more then anything else, they can be made to divide much quicker then any others I have used.
Though you do need quite good oxidation and nitrate reduction from your bio media and phosphate balancing to achieve this easily.
The lighting is no big deal; I have only ten-watt blue and white quarter watt diodes in led fluro replacement tubes over them.
As with many corals, if the waters quality is what is needed, the lighting needs still with good colours, can be quite weak and all will do well.
Many times in the past the green bubble tips would fade to zero colours and would still divide.
That is of course if the foods are top notch, so they can do with out their symbiotic algae!
 
Last edited:
Funny enough I have had different experience with mine, at one stage I had a serious nitrate problem.
My nitrates were around 60ppm and the bubble tip was of the few thing that didn't seem to mind it.
As for getting it to split I never target feed mine as I am scared it will split, I have a small tank and the bubbletip is overgrown as it is.;)
 
I had nitrate and phosphorus a little high some years back as well and the algae slowly dropped out, but the bubble tips kept dividing.
They were easy to recoup their colouration later on
This anemone is far too big for my tank as well, it was just to split the red one, I have not done the red quadricolor until now.
The tank it is in is not the invert tank, if it was, that would be a disaster!
I don’t blame you for not encouraging the green ones to divide, they can really take over.
 
I will definitely have to get a rose Bta when I have the space one day.
 
That is one amazing looking anenome!!

Is that how the BTA is suppose to look? At the LFS the tentacles don't blow up like that..
 
Yes virtually all bubble anemones take in water expanding their tendrils like that when healthy and content with its surroundings.
If the water is of a good condition, lighting is good, well fed and they are safe, that’s how they will look in the aquarium and in the ocean!
Back when my water quality wasn't the best mine did the same as the lfs as well.
 
Last edited:
Why bubble tips inflate their tips and others dont is a mystery that no one can explain as no one really knows why they do or dont do it. I have some rose bubble tips and some days they dont inflate their tips and other days they dont.
 
mariusmeyer said:
Why bubble tips inflate their tips and others dont is a mystery that no one can explain as no one really knows why they do or dont do it. I have some rose bubble tips and some days they dont inflate their tips and other days they dont.
Click to expand...

That's true for most at how far they have looked at anemones.

The quality of every ones aquariums waters varies from hour to hour as does the anemones needs; I have already looked at that.
Do you have any idea how much and how often your corals and sponges expel toxins into the water in your aquarium and that's just one of hundreds of contributing factor in how anemones react.
I love how they react when you place a more toxic anemone or soft coral and put it in stress to emit toxins near by in the current directed at them,lol.they don't like it and what they do is quite funny,
It had me puzzled back then as well from the thousands over the years I had collected, back then we would work on quoters of sometimes 400 each per day along with everything else collected for the market.
One day I did over 600 hundred of three species, this was ruining the hobby part of it for me back then.
Its not that hard to fathom when you watch variations of them over some years at home and many thousands of them in the wild and their reactions to thermoclines, shadows, their own waste expelled and all types of water variations from currents and weather events, etc, etc.

I set some up in the shed back then in some of my 37 tanks in the double garage out the back where I stored my commercial catches, several tanks were plumbed and running off each bio filter and I changed water parameters, quality of foods, lighting and so on to see what happens.
They need so they expand and take in the waters and at a particular time if it is not suited from their reactions the surrounding waters, then they do not.
From what I found with thousands of all local types over the years collected and some kept, it’s that simple.
There are two anemones and two clams and no one else knows of them so far that I have been observing and never touched them for just over thirty years now and just those have taught me so much.
I use to be a keen tester when I use to take water samples from all over the place when out collecting and from with in the anemones flesh and a mates friend as a pharmacists would help out with tests that I could not do or afford with what was available for hobbyists from the shops.
It’s a big world that ocean out there, but it’s really very simple.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom