Anemone behavior

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#1
Came home just now and discovered that my condy has moved (left side of tank) directly into the rock work in complete darkness. My sebae (right side of tank) is behind the rock work in complete darkness aswell. Since they are both dependant on light will they eventually move themselves back into a lighted area? I so do not feel like moving my rocks around to get to them, but if I have no choice I would rather know now since I am off tomorrow and have the time to do it. Thanks in advance.
 

Solus

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#2
dude mine did that and died I have that giant sabea from jans now and Im keeping him in my frag tank with my mh
 
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#4
Two different anemones from two different oceans with two different care requirements.

Condy is a rock anemone and wants to be in a crack. If it's column is not in a crack it will go looking for a crack and may end up retreating deep into a rock pile. Try to create/find a crack for it where it can fully contract if bothered, but can still expand into the light.

Unfortunately lots of anemones can come into the trade called "sebae". There is no such thing, actually, as a "sebae" anemone. I have to assume you have an H. crispa anemone since these are the most common. H. crispa is a sand anemone and will not be happy unless it is in the sand and can bury itself up to the oral disk. If you place it on the rocks it MAY stay (depending on whether it feels its base is secure) or it may start to back deeper into the rocks looking for refuge. Try placing it in the sand at the junction between a rock pile and the sand bed.
 
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#8
Well **** has hit the fan unfortunately. I have to move alot of rock work to geth them and I am pretty sure I am starting a mini cycle but I hope my tank is mature enough to handle it. I put the sebae in an reae where he cant really be moved and has plenty of space to wedge itself between the sand bed an rocks. Thing is he is showing some of his innards from the mouth. Not a whole lot but you can see it. Its still inflated so hopefully its just pissed and will settle down. As far as the cody I placed it inside a rock area where it sand, but I know it has no place to go but back up. If need be its in an area that I can easily access and get it out. I think my rock work looks like *** now but I guess I have to just put up with it until the tank settles again. Ill keep a close on on the sebae though just in case it decides to take a ****.
 
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#12
I bought a purple tip anemone last week and it seems to be doing pretty good. I did find it all shriveled up and hiding inside the rocks one day when I came home from work. Next day it moved back out to the lights and has remained fully opened since.
 
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#13
Well just took this picture and he looks a million times better now. No more guts coming from the mouth, so my hunch that he was pissy was right. I did have to lower my pumps all the down to 20% as anything above that makes too much flow and really moves this guy everywhere. Hopefully it will be hapy there and stay put, but knowing these things it will move later lol. Thanks for the help guys!

 
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#14
That is a Heteractis crispa. It is actually in pretty good shape, with the exception that it is totally bleached (has no zooxanthellae). Here's what it SHOULD look like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skN7SviG1-c&feature=fvsr

Where you have it placed is perfect. It may move into the rocks, but it will still stay deep - it won't climb like H. magnifica or S. gigantea.

You need pretty bright lighting to keep these guys over the long term. Your tank looks a little dark?
 
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#15
Yeah I have the T5 on for a few hours to simulate dawn and dusk and the MH turn on for 8 hours inbetween. Here is a picture with all the lights on:



Kinda sucks to know its not a sebae, but oh well. As long as my clowns host it eventually lol.
 
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#16
Thered no such thing as a sebae anemone...its just a generic name given to a few different sprcies of nems
 
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#18
"Sebae" is a generic term that I swear is used to describe any clown anemone that people can't identify. I have seen almost every clown anemone species described as a "sebae" anemone at one time or another. Most frequently it is used as a generic term to describe H. malu, H. crispa, or sometimes even H. magnifica.

Your anemone, H. crispa, is actually pretty cool. It is a long tentacle anemone, and when healthy, can display the longest tentacles of ANY clown anemone - in some cases 6" long or longer. They prefer mixed rock / sand beds where they can hide their column in sand or in rock crevices. They typically have white/off white columns and oral disks, with bright balls of color on the tips of their tentacles. Rarely you can find solid purple ones, and VERY rarely you can find solid sky blue ones. They tend to be a little fickle about environment, and aren't particularly good shippers, and will easily expel all their zooxanthellae when stressed to be left in an opaque white color. Because of this white pigment, they are easily dyed and will often be seen a garish pink or yellow in the LFS. These are not natural colors for the species, so if you see a yellow or pink H. crispa, you know it has been dyed.

Once settled into a tank they can be very robust and get quite large. They have the second broadest range of all the clown anemones (behind E. quadricolor) and can be found in temperate waters all the way down to South Australia. I think they are probably my second favorite clown anemone overall :) Congrats! But make sure he gets a fair amount of flow and lots of light!

Here are a few photos of H. crispa in the wild to see what they look like naturally. I'm gonna be in Fiji in a couple of weeks and I'll try to take a few more H. crispa shots...







 
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#19
Nice! So when you say fair amount of flow is it enought to make the tentacles sway some in the wtaer. Cause if I use stronger flow his whole body sways and looks like the foot will detach from the rock. If I try to adjust the tunze he will get some flow but 50% he will just lay flat on the sand bed.
 
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#20
I have seen these guys in the surf zone on tropical reefs. They can stand a lot of flow as long as their column is protected. Best bet is to try to have high flow across the top of the anemone without blasting directly on it. That way if they want more flow they can reach up to it, and if they want quiet they can pull back a little. They have to get used to the flow, so ramp it up slowly... but you may find that once used to the flow your anemone will love it. They do not have sophisticated respiratory systems so they have to depend greatly on water flow to coat their bodies in oxygen; low flow and they can literally suffocate from lack of oxygen.
 

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