BTA and Heteractis spp.

[timrandlerv10]

What requirements or advantages should a tank have if several BTAs and a heteractis?

starting with a 75G display and a 55G fuge/sump.

[garygb]

I would suggest you have a species tank, either BTA's or Heteractis species, but not both in a 75 gallon.

[adtravels]

it appers that h. mag and btas have aa very mixed record as tank mates withe the mag not being happy for some reason

[timrandlerv10]

i know some people have done it...seen the pictures...i was wondering what characteristics are common to success and which are common to failure?

[traveller7]

Originally posted by timrandlerv10
i know some people have done it...seen the pictures...i was wondering what characteristics are common to success and which are common to failure?

There are not enough comparative data points to answer your question.

A snapshot in time with no long term (2-5years) baseline as a support is like analyzing the fall of that window washer from 47 stories; who is going to recommend that based on a single success?

Success with H. magnifica is terrible, in fact success is too low to even calculate a strategy.

Success with H. crispa seems comparatively reasonable for the specimens that survive the first 30 days.

H. malu does not seem to be available enough to measure.

H. aurora is rarely available and the few I have seen of late do not appear to be Heteractis species at all.

fwiw: Feel free to browse my gallery, you'll see numerous photos of tanks with mixed anemone species.

You'll also notice the recent examples show the anemones isolated by species, the reason? When mixed some did great, others were clearly unhappy. The condition would occasionally reverse. End result, on no occasion could all species be characterized as thriving.

My current BTAs, H. crispa, S. tapetum, etc. are all expanding, eating, growing, better when isolated by species.

[timrandlerv10]

Scott,
what do you mean by 'unhappy'? to be clear, i'm not trying to pick, i'm looking for the objective and subjective observations and recordings i would be making if i had a mixed pair right now.

is there anything that you could point to that would support one specie over another? maybe a bad example for my question would be lighting; the crispa did better with old bulbs because i fed more often, the bta did better with new bulbs, or one preferred 10k and the other 14k.

as someone with a great interest in economics, i appreciate your analogy, but the last two times i wore this shirt my alma mater won a national championship

the other nem in which i have an interest is s helianthus, and i'm too nervous to blend that with my gsms and hopefully a mandarin in the future.

what would you say are the primary reasons for anemone species not to be able to thrive when not isolated?

...and you're the scott of cujo fame?

your gasters look great btw.

[traveller7]

Bottom up: Thanks for the compliment on the gasters and yes Cujo is in the house, breeding like clockwork and attacking anything that moves ;>)

Some of the pictures in the gallery show a wall unit on a central system. Lighting of just about every flavor had been used at some time, but I eventually settled on metal halides across the board; 70-400wt depending on tank depth, specimens, etc.

Tried a large carbon reservoir on the main return line to remove potential compounds antagonizing the different species, did not seem to help long term.

Symptoms: lack of expansion, lack of growth, lack of appetite, increased wandering, tentacle absorption, and clown pairs relocating to "healthier" specimens. It was interesting to note the clowns would occasionally move back after the original anemone "recovered" and the new anemone went into decline. Maybe interesting is not the right term, because the constant shuffling of clown pairs between "choice anemones" made separating the pairs in the 300g impossible Was unable to correlate events to lighting, general water conditions, hosting, etc.

In isolation, the anemones do not seem to be irritated by outside influences. They act in a "predictable" manner in line with water quality, lighting type/age, hosting, feeding etc.

fwiw: back in the days of my Carib biotope, I preferred to have helianthus host anemone shrimp over clowns.
fwiw2: S. tapetum seemed oblivious to having any other corals or anemones in the tank with them. Can't tell the difference in isolation either.

btw: Just make sure you wash that shirt this year ;>)

[timrandlerv10]

i've got a bazillion questions, but i'm still working on them. for now, do you think you would see the same results with sebae/bta or helianthus/bta in two displays with the same sump (one system by physically seperated)?

i put my shirt on today and watched the last 15 minutes of the game again. i will definitely wash it...the next time we lose...

agh, i've got to spit this out:
i've seen so many events of indeterminate origin be attributed to alleopathy. yes it exists, but can everything we dont understand be attributed to that? i sort of feel like 'a native' 1000 years ago thinking 'well, we didnt shoot a bear before winter and now its sooo cold, so...'
i guess its a derivation of the previous analogy...i dont know why its football season again, it must be because i havent washed my shirt...

obviously its more difficult when things are closer--i've seen frogspawn sweepers hit my zoos and they close really fast! certainly there are nematocysts or chemicals that they have that are not in my fingers or on fish or etc etc.

if they could do well with physical seperation, i'm contemplating splitting my 75 down the middle...but then each only gets a 32G...



back to the helianthus: i would love to see it host shrimp, but i'm already missing about $100 worth of shrimp...what's to say my gsm doesnt decide she gets a TWOFER! a new shrimp AND a new house
what fish did you have in the tank with it? who got eaten?

[delphinus]

I sort of agree that too many things are written off to allelopathy nowadays. I think it definitely exists, but I think it's used to explain away a lot of other things that defy an "easy" categorization. Things are rarely as simple as we wish them to be.

Having said that ... I used to keep BTA's and my H. magnifica together. Things just sort of evolved that way. I found that when there was 1 BTA, and the 1 H. mag, things were fine. Things were fine with 2 BTA's (ie. it split), and 1 H. mag. Get another split, and maybe another, suddenly looking at 4 BTA's (or more) and 1 unhappy H. mag (deflation/reinflation). Tear apart the reef, get the clones out, trade or sell them away, back down to 1 BTA and 1 H. mag and the H. mag stopped deflating. I saw this pattern on at least 3 different occasions before putting the H. mag into a dedicated species setup. Can't say for sure what was going on, but it sure seems like something was going on.

In hindsight, H. mag is just not a good candidate for anything but a species setup, right down to the details of what fish you keep with it. Bottom line, tankmates at risk. It's a calculated risk, ie., for sure I keep non-anemonefish in with mine, but if I ever have to move the anemone, all fish will need to be relocated first. I've had several tank wipeouts due to this anemone, not fun.

[OrionN]

I had a 400 g system with H. magnifica which split three time to four clones. I was never able to keep any other anemone in this system. A RBTA that just did not thrive and died after 6 months. A carpet that did not do well and was removed after 4 months. Another RBTA that did not do well and was removed after 4 months. Sold and it did well and is still alive today.
As far as I can tell, the tank did very well with SPS grew at a fast rate. Chemistry as far as I can measure were fine with Nitrate never detectable.
I don't have this tank anymore, but will not set up a mix anemone system anymore (at least my H. magnifica system in the near future)

[timrandlerv10]

i wish i knew how to type with the strike lines through words...

do you guys think the H. group is more susceptible or sensitive than others may be?

how come there are so many mixed species tanks out there?


(i also see a lot of 'do i need an undergravel filter' and 'i put my nem in my tank this afternoon and my percs haven't hosted' or ' i got in an hour ago now its deflated is it dead' so i guess who knows what we could see as long as they live long enough to be photographed!)

[traveller7]

Someone's "experiment" with a specimen that can decline over extremely long periods and the assessment of someone that can't recognize healthy anemone behavior does not provide valid data to answer your question(s).

You are hoping for research grade answers, when the best we can provide is long term personal experience. Good and bad.

It is up to you to weigh the value of the comments, ignore my posts and check out the history of some of the posters on this thread. You'll find a wealth of related experience supporting the comments.

Cheers and good luck.

[timrandlerv10]

Scott,
You had me at hello. You lost me at 'ignore my posts'! I've already come to the conclusion that:
it is possible
sometimes it works
sometimes it doesnt
we dont know why for either (absolutely)
the more experience, knowledge, equipment and time you have the better off you will be, but that wont help day 2.

i'm not going to mix a bta and an H-type this week

now lets talk about helianthus, bta and dragonets

tim

[hybridgenius]

Are the same people you seen with that one pic still doing good with there MIXED SPECIES TANK? Those are questions you ask yourself after analyzing the situation at task. If so, then theres your answer... you know somebody with a healthy mixed species tank, so ask them for suggestions and why they were successful. A lot of us are telling you in the long run this isnt going to work. It isnt rocket science...many more had bad experiences then good ones and if you're that committed to experiment and explore the possibilities, then I guess you should try it and SEE HOW IT GOES. After about 8-12 months, come back and detail us with how everything went.

[timrandlerv10]

i really REALLY want to do that, but at what cost? does the sebae really want to get in my 75 with a bta that has a history of cloning and growing like a weed?

what do i do if it works for six months, then goes down hill? i dont (cant!) have another tank ready to go to catch the sebae...give it away to somebody who has a 20H and 39 watts of pc light?

i think one day i will try it, see what goes right and wrong, publish my observations and conclusions...but only after i have a significantly better equiped and established tank. hopefully i can glean some good ideas while i wait!

in the meantime, the silicone cured on our coast to coast internal overflow, and we're plumbing right now. new 75 gets wet tomorrow with 100 pounds of sand and 100 pounds of LR (and my wife gets her foyer back...thats where the sump has be sitting with rocks and sand!)

if you guys have any ideas or can point me towards success and failure stories, please do--i cant wait to keep reading!

tim

[hybridgenius]

We get guys like you EVERYDAY.

[traveller7]

Originally posted by hybridgenius
We get guys like you EVERYDAY.

I wish we did.

Most don't research or ask. Most ask after the critters are half dead, eating each other, etc.

I'd welcome hundreds of threads like this one over the former.

Let's not let the discussion, debate, etc., become personal.

Cheers folks.

[MarinaP]

I have 14 btas in the same tank with a mag. Have been happy together for the past 2 years.

[garygb]

Marina, I'm curious about your husbandry: carbon (or not), size of tank, protein skimmer, other occupants in the tank, etc. I'm not planning on mixing mine, but years ago when I did have a BTA in with my H. magnifica, the BTA just went down hill.