the magnificant anemone

[Ron Popeil]

how many people have these anemones, and what size are they? did you get them through mail order? do you have any pictures? what do you feed them? does anyone have any more than just two clowns living in it? what seems to be the reason that will cause them to stay put for extended periods of time? what sort of things will affect their health? what are observations that owners of these anemones notice?

any advice would be greatly appreciated.
thank you very much!

[Marc03]

i never heeard of an anemone called a magnificant anemone???

[OrionN]

H. magnifica (Magnificent or Ritteri anemone) is the most demanding of host anemone species. It is not recommended that you buy this anemone MO. They usually don't live to long if injured. Also, some specimens are much more colorful than other. Without seeing them, will not likely get a beautiful one.
They usually live high on the reef and required very high light and current. They also grew to be very large. Mine is more than 2 feet in diameter fully expanded. They do host a large number of anemone fish species. Rarely they divided in aquarium. It is though that some clone only propagates sexually while other reproduce both sexually and asexually.
James Wiseman and I are the two people successfully keep this anemone alive that I know of and seen personally. I use a flat piece of rock high in my tank right under my 400W MH. I also have very high flow to this area (about 2500 gph point to this area.) The tentacles always waving, sometime the current really whipped the tentacles. I feed the anemone with various seafood injected with Selco and a baby (human) liquid vitamin.
My tank is very large, 450 g tank. I planned for this anemone from the beginning and was successful in obtain a beautiful specimen. I was able to have a place in my aquarium, as they required. My anemone stays where I place him the first day and have not move at all.
My anemone has also divided in my aquarium twice in the last 14 months. I have three clones in my tank at this time.
H. magnifica is not an anemone for beginner. Make sure you have the required condition before obtain this anemone. It is a very large anemone and have powerful sting. If condition is not right, it will more and kills all your corals that are in its path. Good luck. Please consider carefully. I search for my anemone for 18 months before I was able to obtain a healthy, beautiful specimen.

Minh Nguyen

[Ron Popeil]

thank you very much mr nguyen, i appreciate your imput. where does one get selcon? and what type of "baby (human) liquid vitamin" do you use? what do you inject it into?

thanks again!

[delphinus]

Selcon should be available from LFS or MO outfits (try premiumaquatics.com maybe).

Minh is basically spot on on his overview. I have to add that I've had mine since 2001 so two years and counting. I only know of Minh and JamesW who have kept them for this amount of time (or longer). Other than that I don't really know what kind of statistics of people who keep these, who still have them after the first year, but I fear it is still quite dismal. I really urge you to reconsider trying one of these if you're new to the hobby. They're not an easy animal by any stretch, and it can sometimes take a keen eye to determine if it's stressed or not. It may look fine, but be stressed, and too much stress kills.

Mine is also a very large animal, I'd estimate about 24" across. I have been fortunate with this guy and it has done well for me. But I feel one reason for this is that I've paid very particular attention to its requirements and it is "numero uno" in the reef -- everything else is secondary. If for some reason I discovered that I couldn't keep it within something else that I have because of out of room, or whatever, I'd be getting rid of that other thing. If I found anything picking on it or causing it distress, I wouldn't hesitate. The anemone comes first!

The basic rules with this species, and Minh has sort of already spelled them out pretty well.

1. They require a lot of current, ideally a surging type current.

2. Lots of feeding. Mine feeds on copious amounts of large planktonic foods such as mysis, krill, shrimp, even silversides or small pieces of chopped fish. Basically I haven't found anything that it doesn't like to eat.

3. Lots of light. Lots of it .... it will take all you can throw at it.


Consider the natural habitat of this animal on the reef, and you will sort of see how these rules fall into place. Basically they find a spot at the top of a bommie, or the top of the reef. They don't bury their foot or anything like that; they attach to a hard smooth surface. Lots of current will bring carry lots of food to their location; plus carry away wastes .... at the top of the reef the sunlight is brighter than at the bottom of the reef. I have seen a video of these anemones getting exposed at extreme low tides. This can give you an idea to how much exposure to bright light they can tolerate, plus gives you an idea how close they are to the wave actions at the water surface.

I might be a hypocrite for saying this, but, after two years of keeping one of these myself, and seeing just how demanding this animal can be, these guys really are better off being left in the ocean. If you wish to try an anemone in a reef, there are less demanding choices. Plus some species, such as BTA, it is possible to obtain captive-raised specimens (from splits). Any ritteri you see in the store, is collected from the wild. Which means there is one less anemone out there in the wild, which means slightly less habitat for wild clownfish. I don't mean to be a downer but it is pause for second thought...

Whatever you decide, good luck.

[OrionN]

Originally posted by Ron Popeil
...... and what type of "baby (human) liquid vitamin" do you use? what do you inject it into?

thanks again!
I use a syringe with needke and inject the Selco and a little vitamin solution into the shrimp, fish and other food befor I feed it to the anemone.
I use "Eckerd vitamin drops with iron for childres 0-3 yrs". This stuff got to taste pretty bad. I got it for my sons, but they would not swallow it, so I use it for the fish tank. I added to my home made food and injected it into food I feed the anemonies in my tank.
Minh Nguyen

[tpeterson70]

I bought one about a year ago and have had it in my 125 under 4X96pc's. It had two mouths and I never understood why.
I was just starting and didn't know what I was doing. It has survived quite a bit including things like learning that I'm supposed to drip the Kalk not just pour it in.
It has always been small (about 3-4") and several times I thought it was a gonner.
Last week my boys told me that it was "missing". I found it in the overflow attached to the plastic. When I went to pull it out it came in two whole peices alive and healthy. (although very small 2" each).
I am trying to feed them every day (mostly clam, krill, mysis, and silverside) and thay are showing some improvement.
I am slowly working on getting the halides installed and running and I hope this will help as well.
Should I try to get some clowns for them? Is there anything else I should do for them?

[OrionN]

tpeterson70,
Are you sure that you got a H. magnifica? This is extreemly rare. I have heard of other people H. magnifica divided once but mine was the very first that I know of that divided twice. Both time the first sign of the division for me was seen rock though the anemone single mouth. Both time, when H. magnifica divided in my tank, the tear started from the mouth to the side of the anemone. The mouth reformed after the anemone divided.
Is it possible for you to show us a picture of the anemone?
Minh Nguyen

[tpeterson70]

It was sold to me as a Ritterri and when I first got it looked just like the pictures posted throughout the web. I don't have a camera that will get a decent shot of it but hope to get one soon.
It (they) has a green base/ backside and a maroon front disk area. In better times it's tentacles were short but numerous over the whole frontal area. Now it has mostly two rings of nubs around the outer perimeter of the frontal area. It stays partialy cupped most of the time except for a 3 or 4 hour period after feeding when it is full and beautiful.
It stays very high up on the glass and angles upward looking for more light.Sometimes it seems to fold itself inside out, meaning the mouth opens so wide that it doesn't look like an anemone anymore. I am assuming that this is to remove waste.
Is there another type of anemone that is commonly sold as Ritteri and matches the description I have given?

[tpeterson70]

Here's a pic. Sorry it's not very good

[OrionN]

It does look like a Ritteri but too small to tell for sure. Can you post a larger picture of it? Or just larger more detail of part of it?
Minh Nguyen

[tpeterson70]

Sorry that's about the best quality our video camera can do. Maybe when we get a Digital...

Understand that was when it was looking good, nowadays it's in recovery mode, wish us luck.

[tpeterson70]

Because it split, does that now make one of them "aquacultured", that way I can feel better about having it?