Starting a reef tank

"Don Geddis" wrote in message ...
Just to throw in another: anemones are filled with toxins. If you happen to
accidentally kill one (e.g. it gets caught in an overflow or pump intake),
then you could release a great volume of toxins into the tank all at once.

I disagree totally!

1) Even if an anemone is torn in on overflow or pump intake it is not
guarantee it will die. They are pretty hardy animals and can survive
quite a lot of abuse... Think of them more like Aiptasia :-)
I have witnessed personaly a rose bubble tip anemone sucked
into pump intake the way WHOLE ORAL DISC was removed
and anemone survived. Literally only a stump was left on the rock.
In a matter of days the stump healed and guts stopped hanging
out from it. In the two more weeks a small oral disc was formed
with very little tentacles. Anemone started to feed normally!

2) Anemone body is a thin bag filled with *water*. Not toxins, water!
Deflated animal will have almost zero volume of its body.
Even if you grind it into pieces and let to rot in your tank you will
not cause a major outbreak of ammonia or "toxins" in your tank.
The 8-10" rose bubble tip mentioned in the point #1 was damaged
in a 10 gallon tank with fish, crabs, two SPS corals, green button
polyps and red mushroom corals. All things survived with no issues.
There was no water qality issues, no ammonia outbreaks as well.

3) Injured anemone only LOOKS DEAD and rotting, but
this is only an illusion! Leave it in the tank untouched and
in most cases it will recover. These animals have EXTRAORDINARY
capabilities to regrow lost parts of their body and this property
is rutinelly used in the asexual propagation of the anemones.
Anyone who had ever problems with Aiptasia or Majano anemones
in their tanks will confirm how hard is to get rid of them even if
you scrape their stump/foot of the rock with a brush...
Ornamental anemones like bubble tips are not much different.

This is a great example how fish, cats and cows are similar
but anemone totaly different. Try cuttin head of a cat and see
if it survive... And this is exactly what I was talking before.

Agreed. If you kept a Moorish Idol (although I think you said it wasn't doing
that well, unfortunately), you should have no problem with a reef. Or even
with an anemone.

How is the knowledge collected with keeping a morish idol
possible to help someone in keeping a healthy sea anemone???

On Sep 28, 3:44 pm, "Pszemol" wrote:
"Don Geddis" wrote in ...
Just to throw in another: anemones are filled with toxins. If you happen to
accidentally kill one (e.g. it gets caught in an overflow or pump intake),
then you could release a great volume of toxins into the tank all at once.

I disagree totally!

1) Even if an anemone is torn in on overflow or pump intake it is not
guarantee it will die. They are pretty hardy animals and can survive
quite a lot of abuse... Think of them more like Aiptasia :-)
I have witnessed personaly a rose bubble tip anemone sucked
into pump intake the way WHOLE ORAL DISC was removed
and anemone survived. Literally only a stump was left on the rock.
In a matter of days the stump healed and guts stopped hanging
out from it. In the two more weeks a small oral disc was formed
with very little tentacles. Anemone started to feed normally!

2) Anemone body is a thin bag filled with *water*. Not toxins, water!
Deflated animal will have almost zero volume of its body.
Even if you grind it into pieces and let to rot in your tank you will
not cause a major outbreak of ammonia or "toxins" in your tank.
The 8-10" rose bubble tip mentioned in the point #1 was damaged
in a 10 gallon tank with fish, crabs, two SPS corals, green button
polyps and red mushroom corals. All things survived with no issues.
There was no water qality issues, no ammonia outbreaks as well.

3) Injured anemone only LOOKS DEAD and rotting, but
this is only an illusion! Leave it in the tank untouched and
in most cases it will recover. These animals have EXTRAORDINARY
capabilities to regrow lost parts of their body and this property
is rutinelly used in the asexual propagation of the anemones.
Anyone who had ever problems with Aiptasia or Majano anemones
in their tanks will confirm how hard is to get rid of them even if
you scrape their stump/foot of the rock with a brush...
Ornamental anemones like bubble tips are not much different.

This is a great example how fish, cats and cows are similar
but anemone totaly different. Try cuttin head of a cat and see
if it survive... And this is exactly what I was talking before.

Agreed. If you kept a Moorish Idol (although I think you said it wasn't doing
that well, unfortunately), you should have no problem with a reef. Or even
with an anemone.

How is the knowledge collected with keeping a morish idol
possible to help someone in keeping a healthy sea anemone???

I think he was just insinuating that it means I know a little bit
about monitoring water quality/conditions etc.

Mitch

"Pszemol" wrote on Fri, 28 Sep 2007:
"Don Geddis" wrote in message ...
Just to throw in another: anemones are filled with toxins. If you happen to
accidentally kill one (e.g. it gets caught in an overflow or pump intake),
then you could release a great volume of toxins into the tank all at once.

I disagree totally!

Well, let's have a debate then!

1) Even if an anemone is torn in on overflow or pump intake it is not
guarantee it will die.

Of course it isn't a guarantee of death. But it's surely highly correlated
with near-term death. Happens often enough.

They are pretty hardy animals and can survive
quite a lot of abuse... Think of them more like Aiptasia :-)

Not a chance.

I have a hard time killing Aiptasia anemones even deliberately. Cut them in
half, grind them up, stop feeding, little light. The damn things just show up
everywhere. Can't get rid of them.

If you asked me to kill a rose bubble tip, it wouldn't last a week.

I have witnessed personaly a rose bubble tip anemone sucked into pump
intake the way WHOLE ORAL DISC was removed and anemone survived. Literally
only a stump was left on the rock. In a matter of days the stump healed
and guts stopped hanging out from it. In the two more weeks a small oral
disc was formed with very little tentacles. Anemone started to feed
normally!

That's a great story. But hardly a common one.

Anemones getting ripped apart by pumps, and then dying, is far more common.
Another difference with Aiptasias. You toss a single Aiptasia into a pump,
and your whole tank will be filled with Aiptasias within a month.

In constrast, you toss a rose bubble tip into a pump intake, and you'll
almost certainly not have any rose bubble tip left a month from now. Your
anecdote notwithstanding.

2) Anemone body is a thin bag filled with *water*. Not toxins, water!

Did I restrict my comment to the body of the anemone?

The tentacles are filled with toxins, which is how the anemones regularly kill
nearby corals. They're designed to be released in small amounts, on contact.
But if you grind up a whole bubble tip in a pump, all the toxins from all the
tentacles will be release into the water in a short time period, as the animal
disintegrates.

In the ocean, this isn't a problem. But in a tank with limited water volume,
you can wind up with great trouble for your other livestock.

Deflated animal will have almost zero volume of its body. Even if you
grind it into pieces and let to rot in your tank you will not cause a major
outbreak of ammonia or "toxins" in your tank.

I wasn't talking about ammonia from the decomposition of the physical mass of
the anemone body. You're right that anemones have surprisingly little mass
given their fully-inflated volume.

I was talking about the toxins built up in the attacking tentacles.

3) Injured anemone only LOOKS DEAD and rotting, but this is only an
illusion! Leave it in the tank untouched and in most cases it will
recover.

I disagree completely with your "in most cases" phrase. Yes, it's possible.
But, unlike Aiptasia, you can't take bubble tips and regularly chop them up
into ten pieces with a knife, and expect to get ten healthy individuals in a
few months' time.

These animals have EXTRAORDINARY capabilities to regrow lost parts of their
body and this property is rutinelly used in the asexual propagation of the
anemones. Anyone who had ever problems with Aiptasia or Majano anemones in
their tanks will confirm how hard is to get rid of them even if you scrape
their stump/foot of the rock with a brush... Ornamental anemones like
bubble tips are not much different.

Bubble tips are hugely different in this respect, from Aiptasia and Majanos.
Bubble tips are far, far, far less robust from damage than those other
species.

This is a great example how fish, cats and cows are similar but anemone
totaly different. Try cuttin head of a cat and see if it survive... And
this is exactly what I was talking before.

Sure, of course there are some properties that are different. Fish, cats,
and cows have eyes, for example, and anemones don't.

I still think it's crazy to believe that caring for fish is more similar to
caring for cats/cows than caring for sea anemones.

Agreed. If you kept a Moorish Idol (although I think you said it wasn't
doing that well, unfortunately), you should have no problem with a reef.
Or even with an anemone.

How is the knowledge collected with keeping a morish idol possible to help
someone in keeping a healthy sea anemone???

Obviously, the basics of keeping a stable ocean environment. Salinity,
temperature, water changes, feeding schedule, freshwater topoff, cleaning
the glass, etc. etc. etc.

For a Moorish Idol in particular, it includes a sensitivity to minor
environmental changes, as well as a specialized diet. Most fish you can just
toss anything barely edible into the tank, and they'll get by. You've got to
be a little more careful when taking care of a Moorish Idol. As you
similarly must be a little more careful when taking care of an anemone.

But the basics of care, in terms of 90% of what you spend your days and hours
doing, is the same with any tropical fish tank.

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
Measure wealth not by the things you have, but by the things you have for which
you would not take money.

"Don Geddis" wrote in message ...
"Pszemol" wrote on Fri, 28 Sep 2007:
"Don Geddis" wrote in message ...
Just to throw in another: anemones are filled with toxins. If you happen to
accidentally kill one (e.g. it gets caught in an overflow or pump intake),
then you could release a great volume of toxins into the tank all at once.

I disagree totally!

Well, let's have a debate then!

1) Even if an anemone is torn in on overflow or pump intake it is not
guarantee it will die.

Of course it isn't a guarantee of death. But it's surely highly correlated
with near-term death. Happens often enough.

In most cases I am familiar with, injured anemone was not even
given a chance to recover - it was removed from the tank with
the assumption it will die anyway.

They are pretty hardy animals and can survive
quite a lot of abuse... Think of them more like Aiptasia :-)

Not a chance.

I have a hard time killing Aiptasia anemones even deliberately. Cut them in
half, grind them up, stop feeding, little light. The damn things just show up
everywhere. Can't get rid of them.

If you asked me to kill a rose bubble tip, it wouldn't last a week.

The difference is mostly in size. Aiptasia anemones are quite small
and easy to hide in even smallest rock hole, crevices...
That is their survival technique - they burry stump in the rock and
during the day, when you do your killing actions, you barely see them.
If you inspect your tank with a flashlight, at night, you will see how
tiny polyps are expanding long stumps from the holes in the rock.
That is why you cannot kill them off the tank.

Bubble tip anemones are much larger animals, mostly out in the open
so they are more easy to injure/remove from the rock without chance
of survival. The basic principle is similar: both bubble-tips and aiptasia
are hardy animals with great capabilities of regeneration after injury.
Ask people who lost their anemone in some injury accident if they
even gave them chance or if they removed them from the tank right away.

I have witnessed personaly a rose bubble tip anemone sucked into pump
intake the way WHOLE ORAL DISC was removed and anemone survived. Literally
only a stump was left on the rock. In a matter of days the stump healed
and guts stopped hanging out from it. In the two more weeks a small oral
disc was formed with very little tentacles. Anemone started to feed
normally!

That's a great story. But hardly a common one.

Anemones getting ripped apart by pumps, and then dying, is far more common.
Another difference with Aiptasias. You toss a single Aiptasia into a pump,
and your whole tank will be filled with Aiptasias within a month.

In constrast, you toss a rose bubble tip into a pump intake, and you'll
almost certainly not have any rose bubble tip left a month from now. Your
anecdote notwithstanding.

Well, the difference is probably mostly in size of a polyp.

2) Anemone body is a thin bag filled with *water*. Not toxins, water!

Did I restrict my comment to the body of the anemone?

The tentacles are filled with toxins, which is how the anemones regularly kill
nearby corals. They're designed to be released in small amounts, on contact.
But if you grind up a whole bubble tip in a pump, all the toxins from all the
tentacles will be release into the water in a short time period, as the animal
disintegrates.

In the ocean, this isn't a problem. But in a tank with limited water volume,
you can wind up with great trouble for your other livestock.

Tentacles are PART OF THE BODY. When I was talking about their
body I was including tentacles. Their are like the latex glowe: take
a glowe and exhale some air into it (or water, to be more similar).
You will have a perfect model of a sea anemone. They are hollow inside.
Stump, oral disc, tentacles - anemone is a bag of thin "skin" filled with water.
Yes, tentacles are covered by a nematocysts (stinging cells), but that is is:
just a thin layer of cells: http://www.users.totalise.co.uk/~darrenbarton/id93.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnidocyte Microscopic cells, microscopic volume.
They have no significant volume of toxins to be dangerous when diluted
in the tank vast water volume. They act only when injected to the victim body
by the nematocyst then the skin of live anemone is touched.

If the toxins were dangerous when anemone is destroyed, people
would have problems after destroying Aiptasia anemones in their
tanks, but people do this routinely with no adverse effects to the
water quality.

Deflated animal will have almost zero volume of its body. Even if you
grind it into pieces and let to rot in your tank you will not cause a major
outbreak of ammonia or "toxins" in your tank.

I wasn't talking about ammonia from the decomposition of the physical mass of
the anemone body. You're right that anemones have surprisingly little mass
given their fully-inflated volume.

I was talking about the toxins built up in the attacking tentacles.

Once again: toxins are not filling tentacles volume, they are filled with water.
Water inside them gives them form and shape - microscopic stinging cells
are found only on a thin surface layer.

3) Injured anemone only LOOKS DEAD and rotting, but this is only an
illusion! Leave it in the tank untouched and in most cases it will
recover.

I disagree completely with your "in most cases" phrase. Yes, it's possible.
But, unlike Aiptasia, you can't take bubble tips and regularly chop them up
into ten pieces with a knife, and expect to get ten healthy individuals in a
few months' time.

Yes, you can, and as I said before it is done routinely to create
many new anemones from one specimen. Fish stores do it,
aquarists do it, scientists do it - and it is pretty easy.
Dont believe me? Look http://reefnest.com/diy/slicinganemone/index.html
http://blogs.frags.org/showblog.php?bid=92
There is not much left to debate, my friend.

These animals have EXTRAORDINARY capabilities to regrow lost parts of their
body and this property is rutinelly used in the asexual propagation of the
anemones. Anyone who had ever problems with Aiptasia or Majano anemones in
their tanks will confirm how hard is to get rid of them even if you scrape
their stump/foot of the rock with a brush... Ornamental anemones like
bubble tips are not much different.

Bubble tips are hugely different in this respect, from Aiptasia and Majanos.
Bubble tips are far, far, far less robust from damage than those other
species.

But far, far, far, far more robust from damage than fish...
And that is why I see more similarity between different kinds of
anemones (Bubble tips, Aiptasia and Majanos are just kinds of anemone!)
than between anemones and fish. Fish are more similar to cats and cows:
when you cut cat a head it is dead and the head will not grow back.
When you cut anemone in half, in a matter of days/weeks you will have
two anemones.

This is a great example how fish, cats and cows are similar but anemone
totaly different. Try cuttin head of a cat and see if it survive... And
this is exactly what I was talking before.

Sure, of course there are some properties that are different. Fish, cats,
and cows have eyes, for example, and anemones don't.

I still think it's crazy to believe that caring for fish is more similar to
caring for cats/cows than caring for sea anemones.

You can think whatever you want :-)
However, "I think it is crazy to believe" is not a valid argument in a debate.

Agreed. If you kept a Moorish Idol (although I think you said it wasn't
doing that well, unfortunately), you should have no problem with a reef.
Or even with an anemone.

How is the knowledge collected with keeping a morish idol possible to help
someone in keeping a healthy sea anemone???

Obviously, the basics of keeping a stable ocean environment. Salinity,
temperature, water changes, feeding schedule, freshwater topoff, cleaning
the glass, etc. etc. etc.

For a Moorish Idol in particular, it includes a sensitivity to minor
environmental changes, as well as a specialized diet. Most fish you can just
toss anything barely edible into the tank, and they'll get by. You've got to
be a little more careful when taking care of a Moorish Idol. As you
similarly must be a little more careful when taking care of an anemone.

But the basics of care, in terms of 90% of what you spend your days and hours
doing, is the same with any tropical fish tank.

Exactly. So morish idol is not that different: it just needs specific diet
and that is why people have problems with this fish...
In case of sea anemone, not only their diet is quite specific but also
their anatomy, their behaviour, how they look when happy or sick, how
their reproduce, how they heal after injury, how to tell they are dead etc.
I have read about people toss away a perfectly good and healthy
anemone just because they noticed they expell all water from their bodies,
their normal life function, but they look dead to an uneducated owner.
Does it prove they are "difficult"? No, they are just different.
If treated right they are pretty hardy animals and we know very well
how to take care about most of the species. It is enough data out
there that after reading something about the animal you will not kill it.

p.s. how many sea anemones have you killed yourself?

"Pszemol" wrote on Sat, 29 Sep 2007:
http://reefnest.com/diy/slicinganemone/index.html
http://blogs.frags.org/showblog.php?bid=92

Interesting. I'll admit, I didn't know about this forced propagation.

Still, there's a huge difference between carefully cutting a large, mature,
healthy, well-fed specimen in half; vs. randomly chopping it into ten pieces,
or grinding one through a powerhead pump.

If you take an Aiptasia, smash it into paste, and pour it into your tank, I'm
going to bet that a month later you have an Aiptasia infestation all over
tank.

You do the same to a bubble tip anemone, and you'll never see it again in
your tank.

I have read about people toss away a perfectly good and healthy anemone
just because they noticed they expell all water from their bodies, their
normal life function, but they look dead to an uneducated owner.

So tell me, how do you tell when an anemone actually is dead?

Does it prove they are "difficult"? No, they are just different. If
treated right they are pretty hardy animals and we know very well how to
take care about most of the species. It is enough data out there that after
reading something about the animal you will not kill it.

Of course it's possible to take care of them and even raise them.

But that doesn't make it easy, especially compared to some other aquatic
species.

p.s. how many sea anemones have you killed yourself?

I suppose the answer is one, but maybe it depends how you count.

I've had up to five anemones over a few years. Had a sabae and long-tentacle
green for awhile, then they started killing nearby corals, and I returned
them to the LFS.

Had a rose anemone for a long time. It grew big, and split:
http://reef.geddis.org/55g/life.html#rose
Then one of the daughters split again. So I had three for many months.

I got a "reef safe" black spiny sea urchin at one point. Only to discover
that within half an hour it basically found and devoured one of the rose
clones. I pulled the urchin off, but the anemone was hard and bleached white
over 3/4 of its body. I'll admit, I threw that one out (and returned the
urchin).

The other two clones, at different times much later, seemed to grow "sick".
When it happened, the anemone would stay deflated 24 hours a day. Its foot
would release from the rock, and it would just float all over the tank
drifting by the currents. It would refuse to eat. I'd force some meaty food
into its mouth, and it wouldn't react, and the food would eventually fall
out. The tentacles weren't sticky. Anemones are capable of devouring
themselves when in a low-nutrition situation, so the the anemone would slowly
get smaller and smaller over weeks.

It didn't seem to be water conditions. When it happened to the first clone,
the other clone spent the whole time perfectly happy. Full expansion each
day, eating happily, etc. Water changes seemed to have no effect. I don't
know what went wrong. Much later, my last remaining rose clone had the same
kind of failure.

I generally left them alone for a few weeks. Aside from trying to reseat
them in a rock (which never stuck), and force-feed, I didn't know what to do.
Eventually I worried that the animal would decompose and release toxins in
the water, potentially endangering my other fish and corals. So I'll admit
that, in the end, I did remove each animal before it was completely dead.

Note also that during all this, I had only been a reefkeeper for about six
months. I think I'm much better at it now, can maintain much more stable
water conditions, etc. I don't keep anemones any more, but I've got plenty
of sensitive species, such as stony corals and seahorses. And a group of
clownfish, which seem perfectly happy adopting a hammer corals (and before
that, frogspawn corals) as hosts instead of their natural anemones.

OK, your turn. How many anemones have you kept? How many have you killed?
How much propagation have you done?

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
Be on the lookout for a leopard which escaped from the zoo early this morning.
It was spotted near the corner of 12th and Cherry at around 8am, and in all
likelihood still is.

"Don Geddis" wrote in message ...
"Pszemol" wrote on Sat, 29 Sep 2007:
http://reefnest.com/diy/slicinganemone/index.html
http://blogs.frags.org/showblog.php?bid=92

Interesting. I'll admit, I didn't know about this forced propagation.

Still, there's a huge difference between carefully cutting a large, mature,
healthy, well-fed specimen in half; vs. randomly chopping it into ten pieces,
or grinding one through a powerhead pump.

What difference are you talking about?

If you take an Aiptasia, smash it into paste, and pour it into your tank, I'm
going to bet that a month later you have an Aiptasia infestation all over
tank.

No, it would not work.
And if you are ready to bet, than we could arrange an experiment
in controlled environment (like a aiptasia free tank "inoculated"
with smashed aiptasia paste).

I have read about people toss away a perfectly good and healthy anemone
just because they noticed they expell all water from their bodies, their
normal life function, but they look dead to an uneducated owner.

So tell me, how do you tell when an anemone actually is dead?

Only when you really see/smell it roting.
Your nose is your best tool to recognise invertebrate death in reef tank.

Does it prove they are "difficult"? No, they are just different. If
treated right they are pretty hardy animals and we know very well how to
take care about most of the species. It is enough data out there that after
reading something about the animal you will not kill it.

Of course it's possible to take care of them and even raise them.

But that doesn't make it easy, especially compared to some other aquatic
species.

You are drifting again into a BAD understanding of word "easy" :-)

There is nothing difficult in carying for an anemone, I asure you.
No special skills are required. Only some minimal knowledge.
With this minimum knowledge you can be sure of success.

What I understand about "difficult" animal is for example when
you need to feed some slug a special kind of sea sponge...
It is difficult to buy such sponge, or to keep it in a tank with
slugs, so inherently it will be difficult to take care about slug
which only diet is such sponge.

Another example, mandarin fish - it is difficult because it
will only eat live plankton. Because it is usually hard to have
plenty of live plankton in the reef tank carying for a mandarin
is difficult, but only in certain situations (small tank, new tank etc).
After a while, when reef is mature and tank is big enough
to support a mandarin, carying for that fish is EASIER than
carying for other fish: mandarin will feed itself from the rocks!

p.s. how many sea anemones have you killed yourself?

I suppose the answer is one, but maybe it depends how you count.

I've had up to five anemones over a few years. Had a sabae and long-tentacle
green for awhile, then they started killing nearby corals, and I returned
them to the LFS.

Had a rose anemone for a long time. It grew big, and split:
http://reef.geddis.org/55g/life.html#rose
Then one of the daughters split again. So I had three for many months.

Very nice pictures...

I got a "reef safe" black spiny sea urchin at one point. Only to discover
that within half an hour it basically found and devoured one of the rose
clones. I pulled the urchin off, but the anemone was hard and bleached white
over 3/4 of its body. I'll admit, I threw that one out (and returned the
urchin).

Well... Urchin damage is only mechanical damage if I am correct,
so it would likely survive the injury if given a chance...
Different story is with predatory sea stars, they engulf prey with
their stomach outside of their body and start digesting the prey
even before consuming it. This kind of chemical poisoning would be
in my opinion much harder to heal for an anemone than urchin bite.
But I would ask some marine zoologist to be sure...

The other two clones, at different times much later, seemed to grow "sick".
When it happened, the anemone would stay deflated 24 hours a day. Its foot
would release from the rock, and it would just float all over the tank
drifting by the currents. It would refuse to eat. I'd force some meaty food
into its mouth, and it wouldn't react, and the food would eventually fall
out. The tentacles weren't sticky. Anemones are capable of devouring
themselves when in a low-nutrition situation, so the the anemone would slowly
get smaller and smaller over weeks.

It didn't seem to be water conditions. When it happened to the first clone,
the other clone spent the whole time perfectly happy. Full expansion each
day, eating happily, etc. Water changes seemed to have no effect. I don't
know what went wrong. Much later, my last remaining rose clone had the same
kind of failure.

Maybe they did not like the spot they were in and decided to move out ;-)

I generally left them alone for a few weeks. Aside from trying to reseat
them in a rock (which never stuck), and force-feed, I didn't know what to do.
Eventually I worried that the animal would decompose and release toxins in
the water, potentially endangering my other fish and corals. So I'll admit
that, in the end, I did remove each animal before it was completely dead.

Sad story.... They are beautiful animals.

Note also that during all this, I had only been a reefkeeper for about six
months. I think I'm much better at it now, can maintain much more stable
water conditions, etc. I don't keep anemones any more, but I've got plenty
of sensitive species, such as stony corals and seahorses. And a group of
clownfish, which seem perfectly happy adopting a hammer corals (and before
that, frogspawn corals) as hosts instead of their natural anemones.

OK, your turn. How many anemones have you kept? How many have you killed?
How much propagation have you done?

I have kept two bubble-tips, one green-brown variety, which is now huge
in my 58 gallon reef and a small rose bubble-tip which healed quickly after
a power filter intake accident in a small 10 gallons pico reef. This accident
was really looking horrible. Whole anemone was sucked into the tube
of the power filter. Only base/stump with hanging out guts was left on
the rock. It was total surprise for me, because anemone was sittin in
one spot for months already. suddenly it moved for a suicidal mission.
As I have already described before, it healed quickly.

I had major water quality issues in my reef tank about two/three years ago.
I lost two tuxedo urchins, 2 sea cukes and my anemone was very sick,
similar to what you described: lack of inflation, non-sticky tentacles...
Basically I have neglected the tank, let the maroon cyanobacteria
overgrown the rocks and probably poison a lot of animals. After
taking care of phosphates issues and correcting water quality my
anemone recovered fully and sports beautiful bubble tips under the
power compacts.

Luckily, both are now growing fast and are perfectly healthy.

"Pszemol" wrote on Mon, 1 Oct 2007 :
"Don Geddis" wrote in message ...
Another example, mandarin fish - it is difficult because it will only eat
live plankton. Because it is usually hard to have plenty of live plankton
in the reef tank carying for a mandarin is difficult, but only in certain
situations (small tank, new tank etc). After a while, when reef is mature
and tank is big enough to support a mandarin, carying for that fish is
EASIER than carying for other fish: mandarin will feed itself from the
rocks!

Yeah, I've got a couple of those too. Even easier than the regular fish: I
don't even have to feed them! I have no concern that I can take off on
vacation for a week or two, and the mandarins might starve. Maybe the other
fish, but not the mandarins.

I got a "reef safe" black spiny sea urchin at one point. Only to discover
that within half an hour it basically found and devoured one of the rose
clones. I pulled the urchin off, but the anemone was hard and bleached
white over 3/4 of its body. I'll admit, I threw that one out (and
returned the urchin).

Well... Urchin damage is only mechanical damage if I am correct

Actually, this didn't seem to be.

so it would likely survive the injury if given a chance... Different story
is with predatory sea stars, they engulf prey with their stomach outside of
their body and start digesting the prey even before consuming it. This kind
of chemical poisoning would be in my opinion much harder to heal for an
anemone than urchin bite.

The urchin sure looked like it did exactly what you are talking about with
the sea stars. I don't think I saw the stomach come out, but maybe it did.
But this was no mechanical ripping. There was no question that 3/4 of the
anemone, the part touched by the urchin, was chemically destroyed and already
rotting, within an hour. The color went from the usual translucent pink, to
solid white. Just horrible.

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
Winner, "Papers I wish I hadn't written" contest:
Montagnino, Lucian A., "Test and Evaluation of the Hubble Space
Telescope 2.4 Meter Primary Mirror" Proc. SPIE, Large Optics
Technology, Vol. 571, August 1985

Long spined urchins have venum in the spines.

Wayne Sallee



Don Geddis wrote on 10/2/2007 8:06 PM:

The urchin sure looked like it did exactly what you are talking about with
the sea stars. I don't think I saw the stomach come out, but maybe it did.
But this was no mechanical ripping. There was no question that 3/4 of the
anemone, the part touched by the urchin, was chemically destroyed and already
rotting, within an hour. The color went from the usual translucent pink, to
solid white. Just horrible.

-- Don