Is my Anemone Just Plain Dumb?

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I have a rose bubble tip anemone that has been in the tank for around 4 1/2 months. Recently, it decided to go on a crusade around the tank. That would be OK (I only have a few small corals that wouldn't get in the way) but the anemone clearly is not very smart. This evening, it climbed up to an inch from the overflow on the back wall. If it went in, it would have gotten torn up and crashed the tank. I got it to let go by tapping the side of its foot, and put it on a rock near the bottom of the tank. Have any of you had an anemone that probably skipped fourth grade?
 

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I have a rose bubble tip anemone that has been in the tank for around 4 1/2 months. Recently, it decided to go on a crusade around the tank. That would be OK (I only have a few small corals that wouldn't get in the way) but the anemone clearly is not very smart. This evening, it climbed up to an inch from the overflow on the back wall. If it went in, it would have gotten torn up and crashed the tank. I got it to let go by tapping the side of its foot, and put it on a rock near the bottom of the tank. Have any of you had an anemone that probably skipped fourth grade?
Yup, in the same boat here. Had to turn off wavemaker the other night to make it safe for her, she ended up right underneath the return outlet and got violently blown around until she detached and landed in my galaxea just to start a stinging war. Maybe she was hunting for the clowns coz they didn't want to go to her? If that's the case she won.
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bradleym

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Unfortunately, this is one of their favorite things to do, travel towards different flow sources, such as power heads, overflows, etc. I've lost an embarrassing number of beautiful creatures because my parameters (or something else in my tank) made them wander unexpectedly. In their defense, they have no eyes or central nervous system, and motors don't exist in their natural habitat.
 
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Yeah. You kind of have to wonder why they like the high flow of these areas so much. Especially with BTAs, because they live in low flow crevices in the wild.
 

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I have a rose bubble tip anemone that has been in the tank for around 4 1/2 months. Recently, it decided to go on a crusade around the tank. That would be OK (I only have a few small corals that wouldn't get in the way) but the anemone clearly is not very smart. This evening, it climbed up to an inch from the overflow on the back wall. If it went in, it would have gotten torn up and crashed the tank. I got it to let go by tapping the side of its foot, and put it on a rock near the bottom of the tank. Have any of you had an anemone that probably skipped fourth grade?
Sorry your description just made me laugh. My LTA seems pretty smart for a nem actually - must've been on the honor roll. Lol.
 

Chrisv.

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That's fantastic.
Haha I totally freaked out. I've been in the hobby for a long time, but I had never seen something like that before. I was certain it would sting everything in the tank and the. Get scraped up against the rockwork and die... It turned out to be no big deal.
 

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Yeah. You kind of have to wonder why they like the high flow of these areas so much. Especially with BTAs, because they live in low flow crevices in the wild.
Because even in low flow crevices in the wild they’re getting orders of magnitude more flow than they do in even the highest flow tanks.
 

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There is (almost) always a reason anemones start moving around. They are not dumb, but trying to survive. Just because we don’t know the reason does not mean there isn’t one! They will move when the conditions where they are are not suitable for one reason or another. Some of the main reasons I am aware of are not enough light, or the wrong lighting. Poor water chemistry, especially Alkalinity, not enough food sources. They do not like extremely low nitrates or zero phosphates. Nitrates are a food source for anemones. They also move when they are going to split. I once had a large Rose move from a well protected whole where it had been for years to the other side of the rock where it was all but invisible to me. The next day two cloans appeared on opposite sides of the rock and moved around to the original whole from opposite directions.
If you ALK is far off they will release and not attach to anything in my experience.
I would recommend you check your water parameters and post here for review. Also bubble tip anemones like a lot of light.
 
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My parameters were all normal at the time, and it hasn't moved since. I think it actually moved because my clownfish were harassing it. I'm starting to believe that tank raised clownfish don't know how to host anemones. It wouldn't make any sense for them to lose their instincts, but they really just don't host well. They knew that they were supposed to get used to the nem by nipping the tentacles, but they didn't know that they shouldn't bite the tentacles off and eat them.
 

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It is very common for captive bred clowns to not be hosted by anemones. Captive bread clowns have never seen an anemone, so how would they know? A lot of people have had success by taping a photo of a anemone hosting a clown to the outside of their tank near the anemone. Also not all types of clowns will host BTAs.
 

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Mine decided to go for a ride on a Mexican turbo snail once.
OMG. Last week my new 4” frag of pulsing Xenia started moving. Like rotating around and wiggling. I was like…that’s odd. I hadn’t glued it in place yet and figured the current was hitting it just right but soon realized that wasn’t the case.

I found a hermit crab had discovered a shell embedded in the base of the rock the Xenia was on. He decided he found the most awesome house EVER and would not give up trying to take the shell and my entire Xenia with him. Took me 3 hours to coax him back into his old shell.

The Xenia was super upset by then but bounced back after a few days.

My wife swore if the Xenia didn’t make it we were having crab cakes for dinner! Lol
 
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My clownfish have easily watched 6-7 hours of footage of other clownfish. What actually got them to begin attempting to be hosted by it was playing footage of a natural coral reef. They must have just seen large, predatory fish on a screen and realized that they were called anemone fish for a reason.
 

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I have a rose bubble tip anemone that has been in the tank for around 4 1/2 months. Recently, it decided to go on a crusade around the tank. That would be OK (I only have a few small corals that wouldn't get in the way) but the anemone clearly is not very smart. This evening, it climbed up to an inch from the overflow on the back wall. If it went in, it would have gotten torn up and crashed the tank. I got it to let go by tapping the side of its foot, and put it on a rock near the bottom of the tank. Have any of you had an anemone that probably skipped fourth grade?
 

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There is (almost) always a reason anemones start moving around. They are not dumb, but trying to survive. Just because we don’t know the reason does not mean there isn’t one! They will move when the conditions where they are are not suitable for one reason or another. Some of the main reasons I am aware of are not enough light, or the wrong lighting. Poor water chemistry, especially Alkalinity, not enough food sources. They do not like extremely low nitrates or zero phosphates. Nitrates are a food source for anemones. They also move when they are going to split. I once had a large Rose move from a well protected whole where it had been for years to the other side of the rock where it was all but invisible to me. The next day two cloans appeared on opposite sides of the rock and moved around to the original whole from opposite directions.
If you ALK is far off they will release and not attach to anything in my experience.
I would recommend you check your water parameters and post here for review. Also bubble tip anemones like a lot of light.
 

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