Reef Anemones: Friend or Foe? How do you make it work?

[KeyloBeatz]

I love my nems I have a huge bubble tip,rainbow bubble tip,and a pink Tube Nem. My big Nem loves just under my right side mp40 he never leaves the spot he picked when I first put him In the tank he’s been there for about 6 months now. I feed him chunks of scallops and sometimes I’ll give him some reef roids always seems to respond well to my feeding habits and my x2 32 hydras LED’s . My rainbow bubble tip did the exact same thing as the other one on the left side of the tank under my Mp40. He gets the same feeding habits although his tentacles tend to turn long when he’s feeding and less bubbley.My favorite is my tube Nem I could watch him all day . He’s great he spends most of the time out of the tube he tend to only hide when somethings bothering him. Even at night time he’s out and he looks awesome when the lights are out. He will eat anything that comes in his path brine,mysis,shrimp,scallops he does not care he will eat it!!! But what I’ve found is he actually loves reef roids to the point if i get some on the sand bed he will actually extend supper far out of the tube and probe around the sand bed for roids that might have found it’s way to the bed. The colors on the Nem are so intense it looks like somthing out of the movie avatar. I think nems are pretty easy to care for. make sure your tank is established,keep your LvL’s good ,proper lighting and little feeding if you want them to grow. I feed my nems maybe every other day. Happy reefing everyone!!

 

[Mayhem]

I’ve had 2 magnificas for over a year now. I was initially planning on keeping one but decided to rescue another a few weeks later. It was dying in a store tank; they practically gave it to me at 20$. Took a chance as I didn’t know if they would tolerate each other. But they never attacked each other and during their exploration period were often right next to each other touching without any signs of aggression. The rescued nem has changed a lot since I got it. It was very pale when I first got it, almost bleached. Now nearly doubled in size and close to 12” oral disc, it has turned a dense purple/pink in colour but still kept its original bright green tentacle tips. It’s tentacles are now long and stringy... don’t know why... seems happy though. I’ve had to redo the rock islands a few months after I got them to give them each a nice high flat rock to sit on.

I feed them every 4 days alternating between anemone pellets and raw seafood chunks.

 

[Dragon52]

Here's mine please ignore the frt door lighting effect. The Lemonpeel Angel is about 4" so that shows you the size.

 

[Beth Villmow]

I had an all white rock flower once. It moved a couple of times and eventually just kind of mushed into the rock and died. I made a point of feeding it every day along with my fish but it just never did well. I would like to try again though.

 

[alain Bouchard]

added 1 bta 2 years ago...had some water issue at one time, now I have over a dozen that I must kill injecting lemon and vinegar once in a while. They are incrusted into rocks, no way to take em out alive. I hate em, and regret ever adding one. never again.

 

[DrDeGuzman]

I got a BTA and so far it’s behaving and staying in one spot. Maybe moving to the left or right about and inch or so.

 

[Y8ZC]

So I currently have a two Black Widow BTAs and a rock flower anemone that happily live in my mixed reef 12g nano. The way that I’ve accomplished this is with a glass cup and a breeder separator. I know there are mixed feelings about cups but I think it is a really good solution for a nano tank. Every now and then there’s a prison break and the BTA get out of the cup but the only time that it had been caught far away from the cup is when it used my over flow to split. I simply slide a credit card under its foot on the glass and place it back in the cup and it’s fine and extremely happy; I guess it just gets an itch to move sometimes. With the cup I have grown my BTA from roughly a 4” oral disk to about 9”-10” before it split, in about 6 months. One of the half’s is happy in a cup and the other is in the breeder separator and when it is full healed it will be going into a 90g reef tank that has four more BTAs in it.
The rock flower is on the rock at the front of the tank and luckily for me it loves it there and has been in full view for the past 7 months. I’ve found that rock flowers don’t move around nearly as much as BTAs, and usually fine a spot near we’re you put them in and hunker down. Because it stays there I’ve been able to place corals around it.
I’ll attach some pics so you guys have an idea, thanks!

 

[Blumon18]

Here are my Bubble tips and black widow and my torch

 

[bestfishes]

Ive had nems in mixed reefs for over 20 years. Carpets are advanced, especially haddoni. Mine sat put for a long time in one spot, then decided to get mobile. RIght now hes on the move and its rough trying to get him to settle down. Of course ive just placed my last set of frags in the tank and now he wants to go walking. Im trying to decide if more or less flow will help. Playing with the values now. I would not recommend carpets for beginners and anyone not willing to monitor it and move as needed.

 

[Rjramos]

Put them in their own tank. 29 biocube with about 8 ultra rainbow BTA’s. Started with one November 2019.