Bubble tip not very bubbly?

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8 Mar 2011
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Cape Town, Bellville
Hi there,

I have a rose bubble tip anemone, in which a maroon clown is hosting. But lately the anemone is not as bubbly as it used to be. Is this something I need to worry about?

Tank: 1200 x 500 x 700 (depth).
Lights: T5 Geismann (3x aquablue, 1x aquapink, 1x pure actinic, 1x actinic plus)
Tank age: 9 months
Filtration: Protein skimmer, DSB, Rowaphos in sock, seachem carbon in sock, dosing Microbelift Special Blend

Water parameters:
Temperature: 25 C
SG: 1.024 (D&D ATC Refractometer)
PH: 8.1 (Milwaukee pH600)
Calcium: 450 (Red Sea Pro)
Phosphate: 0.1 (Red Sea)
Nitrate: 8 (Red Sea Pro)
DHK: 8.6 (Red Sea Pro)

These values have been stable for months, except for the nitrates, that is usually at 2.5, but lately my large hermit has been killing my turbo snails and leaving them in places where I can't fish them out :(.

Anyway, anemone has been in the tank for just over a month.

Here are some pictures to show the difference. Please excuse the algae ;)

2011-10-23 : Shortly after I added it to the tank. Anemone decided to attach itself to the skeleton of the brain coral.

46444ee1cfbd31314.jpg


2011-11-04 : A week and a half later. Anemone is slightly larger, but still bubbly.

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2011-11-11 : Another week later. Anemone attached to a crevice in the rock and even more inflated. Clown was very happy :)

46444ee1d086508df.jpg


2011-12-08 : A month later. The anemone is now much larger, but much less bubbly!

46444ee1d0e7be458.jpg


46444ee1d0e7b8274.jpg


46444ee1d0e7af9bf.jpg


Should I worry, or am I just being paranoid?
 
Last edited:
nothing wrong with that :) ive actually seen more of them in the wild like that rather than them being all bubbly like we know...
 
There are many schools of thought as to why BTA's sometimes bubble up and why the don't, it's all guesswork though as nobody seems to know the real reason, I haven't seen any proper studies done on it either. I have a nano with 2 red bubble tip anemones in and they change constantly, some days one will bubble and the other won't, some days neither will bubble, some days both will bubble.
 
Yip, your anemone looks very healthy.

What you could try is bump up your sallinity to 1.026, apparently that is more suitable for anemone's, see if that makes a difference, just more guesswork though, lol. In my other tank I was advised to increase temp and salinity, I went up to 1.026 and 27Celsius and the anemones are all bubbled up 24/7, could just be pure coincidence though, plus I don't like having such a high temp either, but at least the anemones look pretty.:p
 
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