Fishkeeping - Yellow African Anemone??

"Knowleman" wrote in message
m...
DeeOooGee - I just read through this thread and it seems you got some
pretty critical feedback on this one. The open intake was clearly a
bit of an oversight on your part but the chances are that your anemone
would have died anyway.

Before getting my first anemone, I did a lot of research and
discovered that many specimens just die for no apparent reason. From
what I could gather, they either settled in fairly quickly or went to
that great reef in the sky within the first few weeks. The evidence
says thatr dyed or bleached anemones in particular almost never
survive that long. I also, however, determined that there were a great
many success stories also.

Unfortunately, our first attempt, like yours, failed. The anemone just
kept inflating and tumbling over without anchoring. It was also
unresponsive to food. Sadly, it died about 3 weeks later.

Knowing that there was a good chance of this happening, we were not
put off. After checking everything there was to check in the tank
(which was all fine), we purchased another anemone. This time, we went
for a species that had a good/better reputation for survival - the red
bubble anemone. Some reports said that clowns tended to bond with
these less freely, which is why we didn't go for this variety in the
first place. However, the anenome found somewhere to anchor within an
hour and the clowns were happily playing in its tentacles a few hours
after that.

Four or five months later, the anemone is still flourishing, in fact,
growing steadily.

If you are pretty confident in your water quality and general setup -
and cover that intake adequately :-) - I would recommend you trying
again with the anemone, but perhaps doing a bit more reading up on
different species beforehand. They are great animals and add a lot of
charactor to the tank, especially if you have clowns

As for things like feeding, when you see a hungry healthy specimen, it
is pretty obvious how it all works. Ours smells the food at feeding
time and its "lips" swell in response. We then squirt a little frozen
food suspended in tank water in the general area of its mouth using a
turkey baster. The tentacles then curl around it protecting it from
opportunistic shrimps as it ingests it.

Regarding placement, you can obviously "suggest" where it should
anchor by placing it there, but the chances are it will up and move
and find a place that it is happy with - usually securing itself in a
cave or crevice so it can retreat right back, which ours does quite
often. Also, be prepared for it to move around if the water flow or
other conditions change in the tank. In fact, I swear ours just moves
for a change of scenery from time to time :-)

As I said, I would not be put off by the failure and the criticism if
you are fairly sure that your tank is stable and safe. Anemones are
well worth the effort.

Thank you!!!!!