so.. stichodactyla tapetum

[vt_snowman87]

so.. i've been considering and researching on this new influx of "mini carpets" or "maxi mini" or "stichodactyla tapetum, and i wish to get some input from reefers' experiences with these before plunging in..

1) how deadly are they as compared to their Haddoni carpet cousins, do their stickiness and sting have a high kill rate on small fishes?

2) do they stay wedged on the sand like their carpet cousins? or do they run a risk of travelling up rockworks?

3) anyone ever successfully hosted clownfishes? i do know they host shrimps and crabs, but none have been reported to host clowns.. any experiments with this?

your input is greatly appreciated!

btw, found this website thats pretty interesting on maxi-minis: http://www.coralmagazine-us.com/content/mini-carpets-perfect-small-sea-anemones

[Terryz_]

so.. i've been considering and researching on this new influx of "mini carpets" or "maxi mini" or "stichodactyla tapetum, and i wish to get some input from reefers' experiences with these before plunging in..

1) how deadly are they as compared to their Haddoni carpet cousins, do their stickiness and sting have a high kill rate on small fishes?

Very Sticky when stable... Havent got any fishes that got near them...

2) do they stay wedged on the sand like their carpet cousins? or do they run a risk of travelling up rockworks?

Rarely move as least for mine... They are wedged either on cervice in the rocks or in the cervice between the rock and sand..

3) anyone ever successfully hosted clownfishes? i do know they host shrimps and crabs, but none have been reported to host clowns.. any experiments with this?

Nope.. Too small for them to host bah...

your input is greatly appreciated!

btw, found this website thats pretty interesting on maxi-minis: http://www.coralmagazine-us.com/content/mini-carpets-perfect-small-sea-anemones

[straydum]

1) how deadly are they as compared to their Haddoni carpet cousins, do their stickiness and sting have a high kill rate on small fishes?

so far when i still had fishes they don't pose a threat althought the nems are quite sticky. fishes won't swim into them nor will they reach out to catch fish. my snails seem to be able to climb across the carpets on bottom in search for food so i would render the nems quite safe.

2) do they stay wedged on the sand like their carpet cousins? or do they run a risk of travelling up rockworks?

given any chance the nems i have will move up the rockwork for more light. if you place them at the bottom of a large rock that reaches to the top chances are they will be one day that they will be at the top. these guys are really hard to dettach manually once they're settled. so if you have a nem on a large rock and you wish to remove them its a large pita. in terms of on the sand i do have 1 on my sand bed but its foot goes all the way into the sand and sticks on the glass bottom. leaving them on a sand bed by themselves with nothing solid to attach do doesn't seem to work

[vt_snowman87]

interesting, many thanks to Terry and Straydum for the input! sounds like a very similar behaviour to their carpet cousins..

[BFG]

I've found a trick to remove them without force but it need to be done out of the tank, including moving their base to which they are attached to. Done this without adverse effect to their health due to the fact that I've bought a batch of 10 and left them in the plastic container for too long till they stick to it.

What you need to do is to remove the rock they are attached to and find a way to hang that rock upside down, out of the water. Gravity will do it's work and they will fall off in less than 2 hours. When it falls off, wet it with a few drip of water from the tank to keep it wet. Get the base that you want it to stick to and place the mini anemone there, still out of water. It should adhere to the new place in half an hour or so. Keep the surface parallel to the orientation of the mini anemone so that it does not slide off to whatever base you want it to stick to. It may take longer in some case so just drip a bit of your tank water to it, there's no need to have a constant dripping of water to it. After it has successfully adhere to the intended base, place it in a low flow area for a few days and finally place it where you want it to be.

My personal observation with this mini anemone is that they will move to find the best lighting spot. I've successfully managed to get all 10 of mine onto a single fake rock with the above method but they will try to overlap each other to find that nice spot of light source. Those that are not successful will move with the water current, believe me, as I've found 2 that is at the other end of my 4 footer tank. They will lose their color to the point of looking like a bleach mini anemone but I've seen mine recovering so slowly when they are exposed to lighting again.

Hope this helps!