Clowns and Anemones Only

[adrianlau]

Exiled > Anemones bought from SeaLife, not Coral Farm Was thinking of getting another Black Perc from Coral Farm though. Will post some pics of the new anemones I bought. They are small cuz I've got a few big ones initially, one by one all start dying, getting stuck into the powerhead and overflow... pianz! So now buy small ones, at least they are more forgiving.

Haha, my tank is the size u're thinking of 2x1.5x1.5, 10mm thick. Which part of the world are u staying at now? U must have been reefing eon years based on the experience u've shared

IMO, having the Eheim filter intake is like a trap waiting to suck in any passing anemone. I would cover the intake with a filter sponge or wrap some filter pad like this:

Eg. filter pad

[Nitro]

adrianlau > Thanx for the advice and will get it done

[Nitro]

Exiled > here's one of the crispa that had been moving ard and anchoring to the glass wall and also the rocks, (the white anemone at the back)

[Nitro]

A new intro... Anyone can ID it's name?

[Nitro]

A close up on it's patterns and colour...

[adrianlau]

Can share you did you get such beautiful anemones?

[exiled_infidel]

Hi

NIce new anemone. I think its Heteractis malu but i may be wrong. If it is, its tentacles will get (slightly) longer when its happy. They never will get as long as healthy crispa anemone tentacles.

It may also be H aurora but will need to wait for it to be happy first (this species develops very characteristic bumps on the tentacles look like beads).

I still think its the former species, looks a lot like the H malu they get here from Western Australia.

The crispa attaching is a good sign. Keep up the feedings and try not to let too many fish harass it. Do you see healthy (brown, long tentacled) crispa anemones in sg? One of my fave anemones cos theyre easy to keep (if not bleached to begin with), dont move around as much as BTAs and host occies and percs with relative ease while still looking like a 'real' anemone (haddoni carpets do all the above but dont have the nice anemone-characteristic flowing tentacles)

Hope this helps

[Nitro]

The new anemone is from Coral Farm.

Have not seen any brown crispa here in SG yet.

Yesterday was my first feeding of prawns meat to the Clown & Anemones tank. Wow, all of them like it... even the Haliofungias love it. But I must be careful not to overfeed prawns meat cuz water does get dirty very fast.

[Nitro]

Juz after feeding of prawns meat.

[Nitro]

Two of the smallest anemones... so far so good

[exiled_infidel]

The big BTAs look great! Im so jealous!

[southpaw23]

Curious to know what kinda light you're using over the tank currently? The reason i ask is cos i've attempted to keep anemones under PL lights before and they die a slow death due to the lack of light. Your anemones look fairly bleached to me and i'm guessing it's due to the light (or lack of light in this case).

Do take note of their color shift as it'll take a good 3-6 months for them to completely bleach or shrink due to the lack of light. Feeding them helps delay this but the bleaching will still take place as they lose their photosynthetic zoanthelea to help them produce food and provide them their color.

I suggest a single 150watt MH in combination with a small chiller to ensure that the anemones have sufficient light and are in a relatively comfortable temperature. The other alternative would be to get a 4tube T5 set which should work equally as well due to the lower height of your tank. That might work better too as T5s don't produce as much heat and u might be able to get away without a chiller and keep ur fan. Only downfall for the fan is the high evap rate which means u'll need to top up very frequently to avoid too much salinity fluctuations.

[Nitro]

Using 2x 18w tube (think it's T8, the thicker tube type). Did thought of switching to 4x T5s but since this light set was lying ard my house, so juz used it first lor. Ya when I bought them, all were already bleached slightly, think it's due to stressed from all the handelling from being caught to being sold and finally to being placed in my tank

Some are starting to colour up abit, esp the ones that are anchored under the rocks. The two crispa, I'm still trying very hard to recover them back to health.

Using fan now instead of chiller but u r rite, almost got to top up water everyday and monitor the SG. Reason using this config is bcuz I'm trying to set up another tank and using minimum equipments and adopting a old school of thought method, CHANGE WATER REGULARLY. If successful in keep all clowns and anemones in this tank healthy and multiply, than I've already achieved my goal

[ah fat]

saw your tank the other day.

must say i'm super shock to know you are running the tank on 2x18w and the tank so looks quite healthy.

anyway, if you on low cost tank, can try NA 3xt5ho.. heard its cheap.

[Nitro]

Ah Fat > Thanx for the compliments. Guessed regular water change does help alot and also the small, yet "powderful" Tunze 9002. What's the lite's brand that you suggested and where can I view it?

The 2x 18w tubes, I using the ZooMed's tube, expensive manz! More ex than my 2ft T5s ATI/D&D.

Hey, how's the cannister filter working performance so far? Any complains?

[southpaw23]

Just keep an eye out on the anemones tho...cos my take is that the lighting is still insufficient for the anemones. Again i'll stress that it'll take months for them to gradually lose their color.

Best to provide them more light and regular feeding. Good luck with the tank tho!

[exiled_infidel]

Southpaw,

Although the lighting Nitro is using is a little on the low side, there has been very little evidence so far that any of the longer term anemones have suffered effects of the low lighting. The H crispa are bleached only because they were bought that way. The BTAs look fine to me, and so does the H malu although, nothing in the tank has been in there long enough to denote any real success or failure.

I am confident that Nitro would increase the lighting if indeed the anemones were obviously struggling due to insufficient lighting.

Additionally, it would be unwise to suddenly expose any anemone (bleached or otherwise) to high amounts of light (eg a high intensity 150w or higher halide) as the anemone would likely bleach due to the sudden increase in light (more light = more algae photosynthesis = increased oxygen within the body of the anemone = increased toxicity = shooting out zoox = bleaching).

The BTAs do not look at all bleached, but, as you said, it would take at least a few months to tell if the anemones are really declining. If indeed the BTAs were unhappy with the insufficient lighting, they would be moving as high onto the rockwork as possible or even onto the tank glass to get closer to the light (they seem to be not moving much at all, indicating their content at current conditions).

One must remember that we are trying to replicate nature in our little glass boxes and often E quadricolor is found rather deep at 60 or so feet. The light they recieve down there is hence quite low too. I am sure this would lead to many effects (the anemones would probably survive - especially with rigorous feeding - but they may not grow as rapidly or be able to divide as often). The latter may be especially true resulting in mainly the solitary form of the species being found deep while numerous clonal BTAs are found in shallow water (possibly cos larger anemones would be more able to sustain themselves without feeding as often as smaller ones?).

In any case, im sure the true test for this would be time.

[Nitro]

southpaw23 / exiled > Thanx for the concerns and advice, I'll take note of them.

Yes I agreed the lighting might no be sufficient and I'm monitoring it. As the tank depth is only 1.5ft, that's why I'm using the ZooMed's tube although it's only 18w each. 1x Daylight and 1x Actinic.

Rest assured that if any of the healthy and bleached anemones show signs of not getting healthier or bleached even more, I'll do something abt the lightings. Although as what I've mentioned before that I'm trying to keep this tank at low cost(as little expnsive equipments as possible) but I'll upkeep it at the expense of good husbandry with regular water change, daily monitoring of water conditions and LS and also supplements dosing.

Temp of the tank is kept cool by a fan, reason being that tank is situated in a cool corner of the living room. So u can see I'm trying to make use of the environment / surroundings too.

Anyway this tank belongs to my daughters cuz the paired Maroons are theirs when I give it to them at 1 and 3 yrs old, now they're 2 and 4yrs, they insist on keeping them so I did a tank upgrade for them lorz

[southpaw23]

exiled infidel,

yes ur right...it is way too early in the game to say for certain how the anemones would be doing. The problem is that with the effects being gradual, ppl hardly notice the color shifts (or loss) that the anemone is experiencing overtime.

I agree that sudden changes to higher intensity light would cause a shock to the animals but u must realise that 36watts of PL light is just not going to be sufficient in the long run to sustain these beautiful creatures. To make the transition gradual, nitro can easily switch two of the T5 bulbs on first and after a couple of weeks turn on all 4 tubes (should he decide to go with a 4xT5 set). I'm willing to bet that the anemones color and appearance would improve in the weeks or months following this change.

That's not to say that they're not looking alright now...i agree they look healthy for the moment...but like u've mentioned...it's still early days.

Anyways...no offense meant on my replies...am just sharing my experience with these animals. Made the mistake once of thinkin i could sustain them under pl lighting...and it was a slow death for the poor animal. the bleaching was so gradual that had i not taken a picture of the animal in the begining, i wouldn't have truly noticed color shift, not to mention shinkage in size. But again, feeding does help counter/delay this process.

Again...all the best with it..keep us posted with pics and updates!

[southpaw23]

nitro,

i can understand your desires to keep the cost low. perhaps u can keep an eye out on the pasar malam. If you keep an eye out, you might be able to find decent deals on used equipment

here's one i found

http://www.sgreefclub.com/forum/index.php?...pic=59152&hl=t5

alternatively DIYing can be cheap as well.

Anyways...u sound like u've got things under control so will leave you to it good luck with the setup.

[Nitro]

southpaw23> Ya the pasar do have good stuffs from time to time. Aiya that time shd have bought the Solite 4x T5 from Littlebull lorz. Now juz got to wait.

Hey thanx for the "intention check-back" and reminders, appreciate that. Do let me know if next time u observer something is wrong on future pics updates.

[Nitro]

LS updates as of 250507...

8x BTAs - from SeaLife, Reborn

2x Crispa (already bleached when bought it) - from SeaLife

1x H.Malu - from Coral Farm

1x Unknown sand anemone (looks more like mushroom) - from GO

3x Haiofungia (tiger stripes patterns) - from GO

3x Elephant Ears - from GO

3x Hairy Mushrooms (metalic, luminous green) - from GO

1 paired Maroon - from Reborn @ 2003/4

3x Black Akindynos - from MarineLife (was told by another reefer might be Saddleback but still can't confirm as some clowns do look very similar)

2x Black Perc - from Coral Farm

1x Blue Tang - from Coral Farm @ 2002/3 (think can't grow bigger liao due to small tank)

1x Humu Humu - from Reborn @ 2003/4

1x Leopard Cuke (small) - from Coral Farm

[Nitro]

Equipments updates as of 250507...

Tank 2x1.5x1.5 ft, 10mm thick

Eheim cannister filter

2x 18W tube (1x Daylight 1x Actinic)

Tunze Nano 9002

1x Fan

[southpaw23]

1x Blue Tang - from Coral Farm @ 2002/3 (think can't grow bigger liao due to small tank)

U might wanna consider letting the blue tang go when it gets bigger (and it will get bigger) cos tangs generally require much larger tanks being active fishes and all.

Other than that...post some pictures will ya! Lets see all the anemones!

[exiled_infidel]

Nitro, wasnt there supposed to be a rock beauty in there too?

Southpaw, i am somewhat confused as to what you were saying. In your first post you said:

" Your anemones look fairly bleached to me and i'm guessing it's due to the light (or lack of light in this case)."

But later you went on to say what seems to be the complete opposite:

"...i agree they look healthy ..."

The bubble tipped anemones do indeed look rather healthy. Plus, being the longer term inhabitants (anemone wise) of the tank, i think that they are a fair indication that they are at least not doing too badly so far. Although it is hard to argue that more lighting would not be appreciated, the fact that they have not moved around much (BTAs are notorious for moving around constantly until water, flow, lighting are in their favour) indicates their contentedness. Similarly, the fact that several are perched in areas which are not the brightest lit in the tank indicates that this isnt of immediate concern.

The crispa anemones were bleached on purchase and cannot be commented on with any capacity, although it does seem that they are (happily) making the effort to reach more light (or possibly flow) by climbing up the glass. More time will reveal what is happening in this case.

Although many will argue this, i feel that anemones need to be fed, period. Several people have kept anemones under (relatively high) lighting without feeding them at all, this is not representative of what would be found in nature. Under high lighting, naturally the anemones would not need to be fed as often but they still do need to be fed. Do keep this up Nitro.

In any case, if you upgrade to T5s, you shouldnt need to undergo too stringent an adjustment to the higher lighting. Usually these sort of 'burns' only occur when switching from Fluoros (of any sort) to halides.

Just my 2 cents worth.