Yay, Nem Roundup!
RFAs -- super bright and colorful and very very easy to care for. They can be in the rocks or in the sand and tend to move around less. See a great RFA tank here:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/anemone-lovers-thread.1053497/post-12522073Their stings are quite weak. I handle them barehanded and I've never seen a fish too bothered by touching them. AND, if you have a bunch of them, they might breed!
LTAs -- I unfortunately haven't had the pleasure of having yet. They grow big. Dinner plate big. And they are definitely more at home with their foot lodged in the sand. As you might guess, they have long tentacles. That sometimes curl at the ends. Wish I had more I could say about them. When I get a big boy tank, I'll make some sand space for an LTA.
BTAs -- you know these. All bubbly and beautiful. Until they stop bubbling and leave you wondering what happened. Lots of variations ranging from cheap (green BTAs or GBTAs) to very expensive (chicago sunburst BTAs or CSBs). Naturally, black widow BTAs are the best, because I have a beautiful BWBTA. But other popular ones are CSB, RBTAs, rose BTAs that are often confused with RBTAs but RBTAs have more of a green/blue to red/purple coloration, whereas roses are much more light red throughout, Shermans which look similar to the black widows but deeper coloration and no spiderwebs on the disk.. am I forgetting any?
Isn't she beautiful?
Here is my RBTA (that had just split) next to my BWBTA:
Magnificas -- I know very little about these except that they are very big and magnificent and clownfish like them a lot. Also go by Ritteri nems.
Haddoni carpets -- I also know little about these since they just grow too big for my small tanks. Maybe one day. But clownfish also love big carpet nems. They have much stronger stings, though, and have a bad reputation for eating fish. So there's that.
Maxi-Mini carpet nems -- I've wanted to try one, but always ended up getting RFAs instead. They do not host clownfish. Smaller like RFAs but stronger stings/stickier. Can catch dumb fish.
Condy nems -- great if you like a white nems with pink tips. There are strange outlier cases of condys hosting clownfish, sometimes the more robust clowns like tomatos or clarkii. Not natural hosts.
Then there's a bunch of hitchhiker nems that you probably don't want. Curlique nems (not so bad), majanos (bad), Aiptasia (...).
