Ron Reefman's Rock Flower experience

[Ron Reefman]

How big have your babies gotten? Any idea on the growth rate?

They start extremely small, maybe 1/16" to 1/8" in diameter. Without my specifically feeding them while in my DT, they grow quite slowly. At 1 year maybe 1/2" to 3/4". At 2 years 1/2"to 1". At 3 years anywhere from 1" to as much as 3". But I never did much spot feeding for them but they did have good light from leds at 200PAR or more depending on where they ended up in the rocks.

 

[Lisavet2000]

Awesome thread! I have always loved the RFA, but never added any to my tanks till now. I currently had 4 of them but just received a 5th last week. When I was floating the bag to get it to temperature, I noticed that there was something in the bag that seemed to look like a baby RFA. I made sure to be super careful when I emptied the bag in the bucket and watched carefully as I acclimated it. To my surprise it was a baby RFA. When I went to put them in the tank, I placed the big one on the sand next to a rock near my other RFA and the baby I carefully placed in a whole in the rock right above the others. Turned the pumps off and hoped it would stick. To my surprise it did and is currently doing well. My question is, could this Anemone have had this baby while it was in the bag or did they accidentally put it in the bag without noticing it? Either way I am very happy to have this little addition. Here is a picture of the baby. (Ignore the algae please)

 

[Ron Reefman]

Awesome thread! I have always loved the RFA, but never added any to my tanks till now. I currently had 4 of them but just received a 5th last week. When I was floating the bag to get it to temperature, I noticed that there was something in the bag that seemed to look like a baby RFA. I made sure to be super careful when I emptied the bag in the bucket and watched carefully as I acclimated it. To my surprise it was a baby RFA. When I went to put them in the tank, I placed the big one on the sand next to a rock near my other RFA and the baby I carefully placed in a whole in the rock right above the others. Turned the pumps off and hoped it would stick. To my surprise it did and is currently doing well. My question is, could this Anemone have had this baby while it was in the bag or did they accidentally put it in the bag without noticing it? Either way I am very happy to have this little addition. Here is a picture of the baby. (Ignore the algae please)

It could have happened either way. I think (but I'm not scientifically sure) that babies are delivered in the evening. It's unlikely your RFA was bagged while, or at the end, of delivering babies, but it's possible.

IMHO, it's more likeky that this baby was safe under the oral disk of the mother. And when bagged, came loose.

Either way, a 2 for 1 deal. Just for info, they grow very slowly and you should expect it to be about the size of a dime in a year, maybe a bit bigger if it's happy and well fed. For the first couple of months, coral food from a turkey baster with the pumps turned of so the food can settle on the nem is a good idea. Feeding once a week while small and less frequently as it gets bigger should work.

Thanks for adding to the pool of experience here. ;Woot;Woot;Woot

 

[Olefreebe]

This Thread has been a big help. My order of rock flower anemones should be in tomorrow and I will include some pictures for the thread.

 

[Ron Reefman]

This Thread has been a big help. My order of rock flower anemones should be in tomorrow and I will include some pictures for the thread.

Welcome to the RFA family. Glad to have you here and look forward to your posts.

 

[Lisavet2000]

Thank you for your quick reply! I have been making sure it gets food and will continue to do so. I can't wait to see what color it gets. Looks all white right now. I'll make sure and post some pictures when it gets some color.

 

[najer]

I have one and it is very pretty, if we could see through this cabbage I could show us! ;)

 

[Ron Reefman]

Thank you for your quick reply! I have been making sure it gets food and will continue to do so. I can't wait to see what color it gets. Looks all white right now. I'll make sure and post some pictures when it gets some color.

Ha, I looked for a long time to find one that was all white. It was small and in shallow water. In my tank it now has a pale blue face and white tentacles. It's very pretty, but it doesn't fluoresce.

 

[homer1475]

I would assume my white, and my orange had babies.

Found 2 really small ones. One is bright orange, and the other is stark white. While i have witnessed all my others "smoking", these 2 have not done it. So I'm assuming they are the females?

Here you can see my 2 babies. One orange up top, and the other drab white one below it. Horrible picture I know, but they are in a spot that's not easily photoed. They are about a month old at this point(least it's been a month since I first spotted them climbing the glass), and little smaller then a dime.

 

[ApoIsland]

IMHO, it's more likeky that this baby was safe under the oral disk of the mother. And when bagged, came loose.

I'm fairly certain this is what happened. Babies in my tank can often be found attached to tiny pebbles that are attached to the mother. If it was a birthing event in the bag you would either have a lot more in the bag or have a lot more a day or two after adding to your tank.

 

[dracus]

Just for info, they grow very slowly and you should expect it to be about the size of a dime in a year, maybe a bit bigger if it's happy and well fed. For the first couple of months, coral food from a turkey baster with the pumps turned of so the food can settle on the nem is a good idea. Feeding once a week while small and less frequently as it gets bigger should work.

At what size would you consider them not small? The two I just added are each about the size of a half dollar, maybe a little smaller. I'm assuming these are "small" RFAs?

As a side note, I picked up this monster RBTA from a club member here in Colorado a few days ago. He seems quite at home in my tank:

 

[Ron Reefman]

I guess I'd consider a baby that has grown to more than 1/4" in diameter to be out of danger and growing. I personally wouldn't sell one unless it was at least the size of a nickle, maybe even bigger. I'd offer bigger food to small RFAs and watch. Do they hold onto it and do they consume it.

 

[Lisavet2000]

Thought I would send some pictures of my little collection.

This one is the one I got recently with the baby

This one I call big red, he/she is anti-social and didn't want to be next to the rest. Lol

 

[Cell]

Who wins that rfa vs war coral or favites or whatever that is in the pic above?

 

[Ron Reefman]

Who wins that rfa vs war coral or favites or whatever that is in the pic above?

Good question. I've kept my RFA away from anything but zoas and the RFA wins over zoas by being able to block light for them like an umbrella.

 

[Lisavet2000]

The RFA is winning. The Favia decided to start growing the other way. Lol

 

[homer1475]

Is that a harlequin in your first pic? Can only see a bit of it's body.

I so want another one, cute little critters. Been a couple years since I had one, but unfortuantly I underestimated how much they can eat, and it died of starvation.

 

[Cell]

Surprises me a bit. I thought the favia sweepers were a bit more potent. My big bta did a number on one of my RFA's a little while back.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

I've been in love with anemones even before I was started in this hobby about 15 years ago. I really got crazy about them when I started to collect some while snorkeling in the Florida Keys (with the proper license) about 12 years ago. I totally fell in love with the very colorful Rock Flower anemones when I first saw them at the VIP Reef (LFS in Miami) display at Reef-a-Palooza in Orlando, FL in 2014. But what drove me over the top was when 2 of my Rock Flower anemones got together and had babies about a year ago! These are the two parents.
P9290013 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr
P9290014 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr


I never saw the spawning event or the actual birth of the babies. In fact it was my wife that discovered a bright orange "dot" on a rock and she asked me what it was? It was the first of about 8 or 10 babies we eventually found in the surrounding area.
P9290007 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr
P9290005 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr


Over the next 8 months we watched them slowly grow. There are a variety of color variations but most were either mostly orange face & green or white tentacles like one parent or mostly all green which isn't like either parent.

Then about 2 months ago we decided to sell our 120g DT and just keep the 50g cube. This was our original system.
20170223_155902 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flick

And this is the currently the setup of the 50g cube that we parted out of that system. It is a work in progress.
20180622_143629 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

But as I was selling off a lot of coral from the 120g tank, I started finding a few more Rock Flowers growing in with big zoa populations. They can be very difficult to see, especially when the are even smaller than the zoas they are living with! Here is a pic of two that I saved by cutting a cube out of the bigger rock with a big zoa colony.
20180622_143853_resized R1 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

I even saved a few others that weren't at the edge of the rock by using a small diamond edge glass cutting hole saw! The little cores of rock, nem and a few zoas fit nicely inside a1/2" PVC end cap.

All that was good and I had about 15 to 18 Rock Flowers. They were all moved to the 50g cube and seemed to be doing just fine. The 120g tank, stand, sump and other hardware all sold to one buyer and was moved from our house. The surprise came when we discovered an entire new batch of tiny Rock Flowers now in the new tank! Most of them were in the area of the parents, but some had moved all over that tank. In total I now have about 35 Rock Flowers anemones, but most of them are still quite small. Here is a very small rock that was near the parents with about 8 or 9 Rock Flowers anemones on it. I pulled the rock and put it in a small glass cup to take this photo.
20180622_144303 R1 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

Other babies are in the sand.
20180622_143722_resized R1 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

And one even found its way up to the magnet at the back of the powerhead at the back of the tank!
20180622_143728_resized R1 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

Here are a couple shots of the parents and some of their kids as of today.
20180622_144452 R1 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr
20180622_143642_resized by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

I don't claim to be any kind of an expert when it comes to Rock Flower anemones. In fact I'd love to chat with anybody who know anything about them and share info. If anybody has any questions for me, I'm happy to try and answer them. And when I do, I'll be clear about what I know for a fact, what I've heard from others that I trust, and what I've heard or read from other less reliable sources.

And if anybody has any questions about my collecting while snorkeling in the Florida Keys, I'll be happy to share that info as well. In fact we were just there and I brought back on Rock Flower anemone from the shallow waters (2' deep) which are much less colorful than the spectacular colored ones that I understand come from 30 to 50 feet deep. This is the one I collected in its original home off Vaca Key (the city of Marathon) at a tiny island less than 1/2 a mile out from the motel we say at!
Rons rock flower anemone by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

at this time, can you tell me how your experiment is going, I noticed the pictures on your op Page and you got little babies everywhere it seems like. Thank you

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

No answer, I hope the virus didn't take Ron out. Bummer he will be missed