immobilizing sand dwelling anemone using a bowl of sand in bare bottom tank?

[MoshJosh]

could this/does this work? I have bare bottom tanks, but would be interested in a Sabae nem in the future. I read this type (and a few others) like to put their foot in the sand bed. I could put a "bowl" of sand in the tank (have some ideas to make a fake rock bowl). . . but would this work assuming it was in an appropriate location? Would the nem just immediately leave the sand bowel in search of a power head? Or would the nem be effectively "trapped"?

 

[bradleym]

could this/does this work? I have bare bottom tanks, but would be interested in a Sabae nem in the future. I read this type (and a few others) like to put their foot in the sand bed. I could put a "bowl" of sand in the tank (have some ideas to make a fake rock bowl). . . but would this work assuming it was in an appropriate location? Would the nem just immediately leave the sand bowel in search of a power head? Or would the nem be effectively "trapped"?

There are no guarantees with anemones. I've seen sand anemones hold onto rocks in a bare bottom tank, and I've seen sand anemones crawl out of a bowl of sand when it worked in other tanks.

With all that said, I have had pretty good luck putting a 4-inch PVC cap into a 4-inch PVC coupler and filling it with sand. This creates an area of roughly 3.5x3.5 for the anemone, a flat bottom for placement, and flat sides for leaning rocks on to hide it after the anemone has decided to dig in and take hold of the bottom.