PGA's BTA Farming Adventure..

[pga7602]

Hello Everyone. I'm slowly converting myself into R2R from RC, so this will be my first big thread I plan to keep updated. I'm not sure if this is the appropriate forum, but I want a place for me to track the progress as I attempt to farm a beautiful anemone that I've had for a very long time. I hope to share as much as you guys are interested in on how I have come this far with my farming and hope to learn from all of the experts on here. So please feel free to comment and let me know how I'm doing!

A little history on the BTA I plan to work with. It was sold to me by a LFS in which they called it a yellow tip flame. It was the only one available at the time, or I would have bought more to get the farming part started quicker. In case anyone is wondering.. yes I did drop a pretty penny on it. It was a spur of the moment buy and now I regret there were two?

I have since cloned it twice (total of 4 now) over a span of 3 months and noticed that the yellow tips are starting to spread further down toward the base. So much so, I would no longer call this a yellow tip. Two of the clones are almost ready to be duplicated again, and the other two have been eating on their own for 2 weeks now. I'm not in a race to make a ton of nems, so I'm taking it real slow.

Enough with the talking.. BTW, sorry for the reflection.. The baskets are too shallow for me to use a photobox.

 

[LesPoissons]

Congratulations, they look beautiful. How are you cloning them?

 

[pga7602]

Congratulations, they look beautiful. How are you cloning them?

Thank you. Cloning just sounds a whole lot better than cutting them in half lol

There's a little more to it. If you are interested I can go into more detail

 

[User1]

Razor, quick slice down the middle, some do an iodine bath after, hope for the best. Rather quick and dirty elevator pitch on what some do. You will find people that say sure, go for it and think it is right, others will say no, you shouldn't. I'm in the later camp and say let Mother Nature handle it. The problem is people want to turn a quick buck on the named BTA's so this really is the only solution for a quick turn around.

Not saying that is what is happening here nor judging. Just pointing out that this is what happens similar to clipping an acro or slicing a mushroom or flower nem...

 

[Peace River]

Hello Everyone. I'm slowly converting myself into R2R from RC, so this will be my first big thread I plan to keep updated. I'm not sure if this is the appropriate forum, but I want a place for me to track the progress as I attempt to farm a beautiful anemone that I've had for a very long time. I hope to share as much as you guys are interested in on how I have come this far with my farming and hope to learn from all of the experts on here. So please feel free to comment and let me know how I'm doing!

A little history on the BTA I plan to work with. It was sold to me by a LFS in which they called it a yellow tip flame. It was the only one available at the time, or I would have bought more to get the farming part started quicker. In case anyone is wondering.. yes I did drop a pretty penny on it. It was a spur of the moment buy and now I regret there were two?

I have since cloned it twice (total of 4 now) over a span of 3 months and noticed that the yellow tips are starting to spread further down toward the base. So much so, I would no longer call this a yellow tip. Two of the clones are almost ready to be duplicated again, and the other two have been eating on their own for 2 weeks now. I'm not in a race to make a ton of nems, so I'm taking it real slow.

Enough with the talking.. BTW, sorry for the reflection.. The baskets are too shallow for me to use a photobox.

Thank you for sharing! I look forward to hearing (and seeing) more about your process!

 

[ZoWhat]

Congratulations from moving over from ReefCentral. RC people? Let them eat cake....or palyanthids, their choice

 

[pga7602]

Thank you for sharing! I look forward to hearing (and seeing) more about your process!

Sure thing. Let me gather some photos and will post something tomorrow. Thanks for the feedback!

 

[pga7602]

Congratulations from moving over from ReefCentral. RC people? Let them eat cake....or palyanthids, their choice

Thank you... It's hard to just cut it off because of all the history. It's like starting a new life in a foreign country.

 

[pga7602]

Adding a quick write-up of how I split these BTAs since a few of you have showed some interested. Feel free to comment and give me some input.

1. Pull a BTA with a foot bigger than 3 inches onto a dried container. Wait a few mins for it to fully deflate.

2. Lay it flat on a cutting board and find the mouth.

3. Using a very long razor blade (4 inches), slice with a single stroke right down the mouth. This is the most important step so practice on a piece of dough. The cut is similar to how sushi is cut. Zero downward pressure and making sure to start the cut at the back of the razor and pulling with one stroke. If you make a mistake, it would force you to cut twice or worst, having to use a sawing action to finish.

4. Move cut BTAs to a holding container. You'll want to use at lease a 1 gallon of tank water.

5. Leave them inside for at least 30 mins so that it's starts curling up at the wound and expelling all it's toxins.

6. Place BTAs back inside the tank in a basket that will allow them to rest with little flow. Try to drain away as much dirty water as possible.

7. If all the above has been done correctly, the BTAs will start moving around in a few days indicating they can be place back in more flow.

What I have found so far is that it takes at least 5 days for the wound to heal and roughly 2 weeks for the mouth and guts to reform and take in food. I start with the tiniest tiger prawn chunk (1/8 inch or smaller). I don't even think about cutting again until the clone has gotten back to a 3 inch size foot. So far, it's been taking 6 weeks to get them back to the original size, even with regular feedings (every other day).

 

[pga7602]

Quick photo of what I used as a base for the BTAs that are healing after being cut. It's a sauce cup from a fast food place. This minimizes the flow and let's the BTA rest for a few days.