Just got a green bubble anenome....

[tyxpx]

What are the best foods and best way to feed these? Anyway to ensure my pair of false clowns take to it? Any other random advice for a noobie is welcome also!

[kaimarkhirst]

Keeping an anemone once its settled is by no means easy at all so make sure that you know what it is your getting into.

Feeding a bubble tip when youve got clowns can be a bit of a pain as sometimes the clowns can interfere with the process, I keep a carpet anemone with a pair of clowns hosting there and i find that feeding tongs are needed as i get bitten quite fiercly when hand feeding and it gets quite painful after about the 4th or 5th time!!! I also find that keeping the tongs hovered above the food while the anemone ingests it, or the clowns realise its food helps as i find the clowns pull the food and sometimes take it away from the anemone..

Foods, i use a variety of bass, whitebait, prawns, squid and octopus all soaked in vitamin enriched protein mix and feed 3-4 times weekly. Place the food there, dont force it as this will damage it. Also if in the event you overfeed, he will "vomit" and regurge the food back into your tank, you need to get this out immediately as itll be soaked in stomach and digestive acids from his belly depending on how long the food has been in there.

Dont let any algae touch the anemone such as caulerpa or normal alge from rock growth as hell get irritated and, in the worst case, start growing on him and hell die...

Also, keep a close eye on your anemone. Has he changed the water out of him when you added him? Does he do this frequently when you water change? How many times has he moved since the intrroduction? Is he still moving? Is he sticky to the touch? Is his mouth gaping and are the tentacles fully extended? All this points towards the general health of your anemone. Keep a daily diary and monitor. Also remember that all anemones are significant water foulers, so make sure that you keep a close eye on your params.

Any more pointers, we are here to help.

Hope this helps, kai

[sheamurai]

Hopefully you don't regret getting the anemone. I know I wouldn't have got mine if I knew what it could get up to.
I wouldn't do any coral purchases or rock shifts until the anemone has stayed put for a couple weeks. And even after it seems to have picked a spot, something as small as adding a powerhead can cause it to move. Anemones can sting other corals, and eventually kill them if it decides to stay near them for too long. They certainly don't stay where you put them if they don't like it!
And there is no way to guarantee that your clowns will choose the anemone as their host. Other factors come into play for clowns, not just the species of coral. Also, it is recommended that the anemone be larger than your clownfish, so that, if they do take to it, they don't love it to death.
Keep powerheads away from your anemone too - I've read about them getting sucked into the powerhead.
You might want to put carbon in your tank. Its a personal preference thing, but once you get corals/anemone's, with the occasional regurgitation and sticky spot fed food floating away, I think its good to have carbon to remove these excretions.
One last point - they can get quite large, so don't be surprised when it takes over the section of tank that its in!
Good luck.

[rageybug]

If the anemone is still small, feed filter feeder type foods (marine snow, phytoplankton, etc). I mix it with SW then dump it in. The flow from my Koralia takes care of the delivery.

If it is big, you can just place a piece of food (shrimp, squid etc.) near it's mouth and it will grab on. To keep the fish in your tank from stealing it, feed them some flakes at the same time.

[Rue]

My anemones (the 2000 or so ...) like mysis shrimp. I feed them with a turkey baster. It didn't take them long to learn to 'hug' the turkey baster either...

If you want 1999 more, PM me. All you have to do is come over and tickle their footies...

[Dave66]

Bubble-tip anemones play host to 17 species of clownfish that I know of, so it's highly likely your clowns will host in it.

Dave

[tyxpx]

Thanks for the info! I have another thread titled oops concerning the little guy. It is deffinately a fighter! lol. It's been hiding between rocks so the clowns have not had a chance to check it out yet. I hope it survives and that the clowns take to it.

I have a 4x24w T5 HO set-up. Is that too much light for it in a 20 gallon tank? It seems to hide from the light.

[kaimarkhirst]

this one regards to him hiding away from the light has been bothering me so this really has answered my question. (should had asked about lighting before) I think he needs to be acclimatised to the light first, so reduce the output by half.. (take two bulbs out) and see how you get on....

[labnjab]

A BTA is going to quickly outgrow a 20 gallon. Ours was almost 12 inches across before it split. It was only 4 inches across when we bought it February 2009 Now we have 4 of them that take up a good 18 inches of space.

I don't think feeding is all that important if you have the enough lighting. We use to feed our bta's table shrimp 3 times a week for almost a year, but the week after upgrading to halides they stopped eating, but trust me, they are 100% healthy and I'll bet my tank on that. This was 5 months ago and we now have 4 of them and neither of them will eat, but they are healthy, have been in the same spot since January, and are always open