Bubble tip anemone isn't bubbly?

[goldielocke76]

Hey guys,

Picked up a RBTA from sfuphysics at the last meet. It's been going good so far, it found its "perfect" place in the tank, it's been eating, happy, bubbly and you can even see new little "fingers" growing on it. It's been really neat to watch! However, the last few days, I have noticed that it has lost it's little bulbs, and the ends of the "fingers" look wrinkly. I can't think of anything that's changed in the tank that could cause this. I was just wondering if there is something that I need to look into more, or if this is normal behavior for anemone. Posted a few pics to show before and after.

This is the before. Please excuse the instagram-iness.

This is as of tonight, 10/29/2012

Any thoughts are appreciated! Thanks!

 

[gimmito]

Brandie,

That is the million dollar question. Hobbyist have been trying to figure out why a anemone can bubble up in one tank and in another not. You might want to ask Mike what his parameters are in the tank it came from, lighting, flow, etc.

 

[goldielocke76]

Brandie,

That is the million dollar question. Hobbyist have been trying to figure out why a anemone can bubble up in one tank and in another not. You might want to ask Mike what his parameters are in the tank it came from, lighting, etc.

Thanks Jim! I wanted to double check because I thought it meant that it was dying or something. I had no idea that that was a million dollar question for anemones. I guess I took it for granted that it was just going to bubble LoL.

It's definitely growing though! The RBTA is almost as big as two of my fists put together. Wish the female clown would host in that and not the frogspawn lol.

Anywhoo, thank you!

 

[patchin]

Just to let u know, I have one of Mike's that is bubbling but not really growing. Go figure. IIRC he said they bubble less as they get bigger. Might PM him and ask for his experience.

 

[gimmito]

Brandie,

Try getting some live brine shrimp+garlic and spay some daily near the anemone. Hopefully, the clown will learn to associate the anemone with food and call it home.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Jim pretty much hit the nail on the head, it's the million dollar question. What causes the bubbles. Every large RBTAs I've seen in stores or as show pieces, have had very long arms, in fact what you have might be in some sort of happy middle, as it's tentacles stretch out they tend to become long and stringy, the ones in the second picture still look quite plump. IIRC that was a bit of a small one that I gave you, so it's still in the "baby" stages right now. Probably good that the clowns aren't hosting it for now to be honest.

I think it was Rich who said he's seen a large specimen that still had bubbles, not sure if it had the long tentacles though. In fact I'm not quite sure what dictates tentacle length. When my RBTA collection was in another tank I had it under T5s and it stretched out as well, when I had it under a MH bulb they stretched out, currently they're in a system that is fed from my main tank and have LEDs blasting them and they're back to bubbly. So it might have something to do with light, the LEDs might be a little too intense because there is one part of the rock directly under where it seems they've moved away from. Now does that mean it's a lighting thing? Nope. It could also be flow too, since the flow is different in the existing tank.

Bottom line is I am in no way an anemone expert, and can only give you anecdotal evidence based upon my experiences. I have killed anemones in the past, and one thing that seems to be a commonality with healthy vs not healthy is coloration. If they start looking a very pale yet very vibrant pink color, perhaps the mouth area is very white that's a bad sign. The coloration I see of them now looks fine to me. A few of the tentacles look a bit wonky but whatever. They do like some flow so their tentacles can wave back and forth, remember food comes to them, but other than that looks fine to me.

 

[Matt_Wandell]

All sorts of ideas have been thrown out as guesses as to why they lose or gain the bubbles. No one knows for sure. FWIW I have seen apparently healthy specimens in the wild with and without the bubbles in similar habitats. They certainly seem to do fine in captivity with and without the bubbles too. We have a bunch in our tanks that are clones, some with and some without. My gut tells me that it might have something to do with being picked on by stuff. Mike, do you any butterflyfish or angelfish in your tank?

 

[sfsuphysics]

No "picking" fish. The only living creatures in the tank is a tomato clownfish, a "turbo" snail, and maybe a hermit crab.

These guys had longer tentacles, and now they're bubbly again, well some of them are, others aren't. Two changes from one tank to the last is lighting, and flow.