I just want to raise awareness on how hard anemones are really to take care of
1. Size: like almost all creatures, they start off small, and the worst part about it is that they are sold small but they get big, im talking foot longs, try fitting the magnificent anemone (Heteractis Magnificent) in a 10 gallon tank.
2. Dietary needs: Might be surprised to hear that you dont really need to feed them, actually feeding them can be bad since they do poop and there poop can really mess up the water quality, an even worse thing is to feed them a whole fish or freshwater fish, the whole fish's skeleton wont digest and will be regurgitated in a messy glob that will rot and damage the water parameters pretty badly, feeding them freshwater feeder goldfish wont give them the proper dietary needs and it will just go wasted or even worse, kill the anemone, how many goldfish do you think the anemone eats in the wild?
3. Light: Strong, incredibly strong, high lumens, high watts, they are 95% photosynthetic (well not them, the algae that resides in there tissues) and a simple flourecent tube wont do, were talking MH lights mixed with T5 or PC. Some say they need at least 10 wpg of MH light and some blue actinic lights, others say 15 wpg, some say the light has to be MH cause of the lumens. Not exactly in the budget of most people
4. Water conditions: Pristine, 0 ammonia AT ALL TIMES, 0 nitrite AT ALL TIMES, <5 nitrate AT ALL TIMES, not many people can do this, and to make matters worse if you feed them the wrong food, they will spit the food up, the food will rot, the rotting food raises ammonia, the ammonia spike kills the anemone. Water conditions is the hardest thing to do for anemones.
5. Wild conservation: Although this doesnt apply to all anemones, bubble tip and carribean anemones are doing ok in the wild, but most anemones die in captivity even in the care of experts drastically lowering the wild count, if an expert has trouble keeping them alive, then how can a beginner have one successfully.
So maybe you like little cute clownfish and think they need an anemone, well they dont, they can live very happily without an anemone. Maybe you like the look of a clown and an anemone, well there are things to do about that, it is not rare for a clown to host mushrooms or polyps, and the great thing about both those corals is that they are very easy to take care of.
Please if you are a beginner and cant provide the things i told you about, then dont buy them, please
Of course not all anemones are like this, its very easy to keep aipstasia anemones, what you need to worry about aipstasias is the taking them out.
Aipstasias are ok in a species tank, they can work in those 5 gallon set ups, the problem with these occur in fish tanks, having a very nasty sting it can kill many different corals and even some fish. If you like these set up there own species tank. There is a great article about these in the saltwater article section
1. Size: like almost all creatures, they start off small, and the worst part about it is that they are sold small but they get big, im talking foot longs, try fitting the magnificent anemone (Heteractis Magnificent) in a 10 gallon tank.
2. Dietary needs: Might be surprised to hear that you dont really need to feed them, actually feeding them can be bad since they do poop and there poop can really mess up the water quality, an even worse thing is to feed them a whole fish or freshwater fish, the whole fish's skeleton wont digest and will be regurgitated in a messy glob that will rot and damage the water parameters pretty badly, feeding them freshwater feeder goldfish wont give them the proper dietary needs and it will just go wasted or even worse, kill the anemone, how many goldfish do you think the anemone eats in the wild?
3. Light: Strong, incredibly strong, high lumens, high watts, they are 95% photosynthetic (well not them, the algae that resides in there tissues) and a simple flourecent tube wont do, were talking MH lights mixed with T5 or PC. Some say they need at least 10 wpg of MH light and some blue actinic lights, others say 15 wpg, some say the light has to be MH cause of the lumens. Not exactly in the budget of most people
4. Water conditions: Pristine, 0 ammonia AT ALL TIMES, 0 nitrite AT ALL TIMES, <5 nitrate AT ALL TIMES, not many people can do this, and to make matters worse if you feed them the wrong food, they will spit the food up, the food will rot, the rotting food raises ammonia, the ammonia spike kills the anemone. Water conditions is the hardest thing to do for anemones.
5. Wild conservation: Although this doesnt apply to all anemones, bubble tip and carribean anemones are doing ok in the wild, but most anemones die in captivity even in the care of experts drastically lowering the wild count, if an expert has trouble keeping them alive, then how can a beginner have one successfully.
So maybe you like little cute clownfish and think they need an anemone, well they dont, they can live very happily without an anemone. Maybe you like the look of a clown and an anemone, well there are things to do about that, it is not rare for a clown to host mushrooms or polyps, and the great thing about both those corals is that they are very easy to take care of.
Please if you are a beginner and cant provide the things i told you about, then dont buy them, please
Of course not all anemones are like this, its very easy to keep aipstasia anemones, what you need to worry about aipstasias is the taking them out.
Aipstasias are ok in a species tank, they can work in those 5 gallon set ups, the problem with these occur in fish tanks, having a very nasty sting it can kill many different corals and even some fish. If you like these set up there own species tank. There is a great article about these in the saltwater article section
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