Any ideas why my LFS told me a Ritteri Anemone is easy to take care of?

[mistergray]

I was at my LFS a week or so ago and I asked if the Ritteri Anemone they had was hard to keep. He said it was easy to take care of. I went home and googled and the internet sharply disagreed. I’m confused by his answer. I’m inclined to believe all the articles and forum responses found online are true. Are Ritteri Anemone hard to take care of? And if they are, why would the guy at the shop lie?

 

[mdb_talon]

Best case he dont know better. Worst case he just wanted a sale.

They would not be considered easy relative to most things in the hobby in my opinion

 

[goggs29]

Sometimes it's all about making a sale, and what they don't see as difficult is an opinion

 

[MONTANTK]

Could have just been unfamiliar because in general anemones are not that difficult. I’ll be totally honest and say that I’d say a lot of what’s labeled as difficult is more so just getting lucky. I’m not super familiar with Ritteri anemones but I’d imagine if you keep the tank clean and feed it regularly you’ll be fine

 

[mdb_talon]

Could have just been unfamiliar because in general anemones are not that difficult. I’ll be totally honest and say that I’d say a lot of what’s labeled as difficult is more so just getting lucky. I’m not super familiar with Ritteri anemones but I’d imagine if you keep the tank clean and feed it regularly you’ll be fine

Things get labeled as difficult based off the collective experience of tens and thousands of reefers. Of course things change in the hobby(ie goniopora was once classified as very difficult, but that is not so much the case anymore).

Ritteri are certainly not an easy to care for animal and are much more sensitive to tank conditions than other anenomes.

 

[zukihara]

 

[MONTANTK]

Things get labeled as difficult based off the collective experience of tens and thousands of reefers. Of course things change in the hobby(ie goniopora was once classified as very difficult, but that is not so much the case anymore).

Ritteri are certainly not an easy to care for animal and are much more sensitive to tank conditions than other anenomes.

Pardon my ignorance then. I was just trying to imply that with proper tank husbandry they’re probably not as difficult to keep as one might suspect but I could be totally off base with that

 

[ca1ore]

Ironically, the magnifica (Ritteri is the old classification) is actually a quite hardy animal IF you can get it through acclimation. It’s the acclimation that makes it so difficult. If it was healthy at the store, you've got a good shot.

 

[dvgyfresh]

LFS usually always recommend whatever because they want a sale , I have a 40b and saw a baby dragon wrasse , asked the guy if safe for a reef tank he said would be totally fine , after googling I confirmed it was not totally fine

 

[zuri]

Ironically, the magnifica (Ritteri is the old classification) is actually a quite hardy animal IF you can get it through acclimation. It’s the acclimation that makes it so difficult. If it was healthy at the store, you've got a good shot.

this so much

 

[mistergray]

LFS usually always recommend whatever because they want a sale , I have a 40b and saw a baby dragon wrasse , asked the guy if safe for a reef tank he said would be totally fine , after googling I confirmed it was not totally fine

They’re not trying to develop a good relationship if they lie. You think they would be trying to earn a life long customer.

 

[R-balljunkie]

nice sticky fish traps....super sadface when it happens.

 

[OrionN]

Anemones are not too difficult to take care off once they are healthy. They are more difficult in the sense that they need optimal condition or else they move and can walk right into the overflow box or PH. When this happen, it is usually complete disaster for the fish in the tank. I recommend that new reefers should not consider keeping these animals

Magnifica (Ritteri) are not very sticky. Over the last 25 years of anemone/Ritteri keeping, I have never lost a fish to any of my Magnifica. The same cannot be said for Haddoni or Gigantea

 

[R-balljunkie]

my guess is how "fresh" they are...i'll agree Magnifica does not pack a real punch but aurora,

plumosum and mertensii are stickier, not something you want to brush up on accidentally. I might still have a scar from getting too close to a Hadonni one dive….i never screamed so loud thru my reg…More captive species means less of a punch IMO.

 

[Tamberav]

I was at my LFS a week or so ago and I asked if the Ritteri Anemone they had was hard to keep. He said it was easy to take care of. I went home and googled and the internet sharply disagreed. I’m confused by his answer. I’m inclined to believe all the articles and forum responses found online are true. Are Ritteri Anemone hard to take care of? And if they are, why would the guy at the shop lie?

Maybe it’s easy for the LFS to keep them alive just long enough to make a sale. They don’t die in the LFS so they get labeled as easy.

Many starfish share this fate.

 

[ReefBeta]

So, for all that said Ritteri Anemone is actually hard to keep, what actually make it hard?

Just several years ago, BTA are considered hard to keep, or any anemone in that matter, and it's commonly accepted that your tank HAVE to be at least a year old to put an anemone in it. Now I know, none of those are true and BTA is so dang easy compares to most maybe besides GSP and xenia.

So what make ritteri harder to keep than BTA or sebae?

 

[Tamberav]

So, for all that said Ritteri Anemone is actually hard to keep, what actually make it hard?

Just several years ago, BTA are considered hard to keep, or any anemone in that matter, and it's commonly accepted that your tank HAVE to be at least a year old to put an anemone in it. Now I know, none of those are true and BTA is so dang easy compares to most maybe besides GSP and xenia.

So what make ritteri harder to keep than BTA or sebae?

Arnt like most BTAs aqua-cultured? In fact the wild ones are a bit more difficult? Some strains being more difficult as others? I mean what happened to the true lemon drop BTA? Certainly this strain is not as prolific or easy as a rose BTA.

Are ritteri coming in as aquacultured? Are they as easy to propagate?

That would be my first guess.

This is a fairly recent thread about how to acclimate and teating with antibiotics and such...

With a aquacultured BTA... I just toss them in. lol 5 min later they look great. lol

My Ritteri Anemone Thread

Ok, so.... a Ritteri anemone has been on my list for a long time. I am an experienced reefer who enjoys experimenting and trialling different reef methods and responses. I set up back in January a off shoot tank from my main aquarium to this 55 gallon. The point of this tank is to mainly host a...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[ReefBeta]

Arnt like most BTAs aqua-cultured? In fact the wild ones are a bit more difficult? Some strains being more difficult as others? I mean what happened to the true lemon drop BTA? Certainly this strain is not as prolific or easy as a rose BTA.

Are ritteri coming in as aquacultured? Are they as easy to propagate?

That would be my first guess.

This is a fairly recent thread about how to acclimate and teating with antibiotics and such...

With a aquacultured BTA... I just toss them in. lol 5 min later they look great. Clearly used to captive abuse lol

My Ritteri Anemone Thread

Ok, so.... a Ritteri anemone has been on my list for a long time. I am an experienced reefer who enjoys experimenting and trialling different reef methods and responses. I set up back in January a off shoot tank from my main aquarium to this 55 gallon. The point of this tank is to mainly host a...

www.reef2reef.com

Are sebae anemone cultured as well? For the several I kept, they're no different from BTA either. The main difference I see is how terrible some specimen looked in store, probably because of the handle from harvesting. If the difficulty is getting a healthy specimen, should that be counted into hard to keep?

 

[Tamberav]

Are sebae anemone cultured as well? For the several I kept, they're no different from BTA either. The main difference I see is how terrible some specimen looked in store, probably because of the handle from harvesting. If the difficulty is getting a healthy specimen, should that be counted into hard to keep?

I would say yes. Many types of fish are difficult because they don’t handle shipping or transit well and arrive in poor condition.

I would still label them as difficult as transit has to happen somewhere from the ocean to our house and will effect their care and outcome.

I don’t believe sebae are regularly cultured but also don’t remember them being very difficult.

I mean a bristletooth tang is a lot easier then an Achilles tang. I would assume different anemones react different or may be prone to different infections just like anything else. Some things being less finicky or having better collection then others and so on.

 

[N3mo]

Lfs will tell you anything to get you to buy something. I've been caught before as well.

Always try and do your own research, even while standing in the shop you could Google and check, if something sounds like a red flag go home and do more research on it before buying..