Stichodactyla tapetum ( mini carpet anemone ) Propagation

1. Materials: Sharp blade (NEW), cutting surface (a cutting board is best), water bath (keeps the slime out of your tank), and THE VICTIM. Always wear proper protective gear! Gloves...goggles... etc.



2. Today's lucky contestant is a green Stichodactyla tapetum aka "maxi" mini carpet anemone. I wouldn't recommend cutting a "mini" that's smaller than a nickel or a "maxi" smaller than a silver dollar. I don't have a good reason for these "rules," it's more of a "doesn't feel right" sort of thing. Do NOT attempt to cut these while attached to a rock. You will NOT get a clean cut. The halves need to be physically separated for proper healing. Place the anemone on to your cutting surface. Allow it to relax for a minute, round out, and release some of its water.



3. Carefully plan your cut. Ideally you want to create two halves of equal size. Find a line of symmetry. I planned making the initial cut along the blue line, and the secondary cut along the red.



4. Place the tip of your blade into the mouth (45 degre cutting angle). Pierce the tip all the way through until you feel the cutting surface with the tip of the blade. The anemone may tense up at this point, even spit out a stream of water. Holding the anemone in place by pinching it (see above), slice through the anemone from the mouth-out in one clean stroke. Throughout the slice you want to feel the tip of your blade touching the cutting surface to ensure a clean cut. (cleaner cut; quicker heal!)



5. Rotate the anemone around. Reposition your blade into the mouth again. Pinch and slice.



6. Allow the halves to "round out" in the water bath. S. tapetum does not produce a lot of slime... compared to other, larger anemones. Five minutes in the bath should be more than sufficient. If you've made a good cut, your halves will for "C" shapes quickly. You can now place the halves into your propagation tank. Discard the bath water! Keep the halves separated! To avoid infection, give the healing anemones good circulation and away from tankmates that may irritate them (fish, shrimp, crabs, etc.)



Final notes: The more "foot" you give a half, the quicker it will heal. 50/50 works best. Here's an angled shot of another S. tapetum post-cut.



Following the cut, the halves should close up around the damaged end quickly. This photo shows the undersides of the two halves of the anemone shown above.





I know a bunch of you are hunting for these cool little 'nems. I hope this helps!

Cool post, thanks adin!!!!!!!!!!!!

o.O

You have no mercy huh.

I hope you don't serve guests with that bowl.

Excellent step-by-step instructions! Adin ftw

I vote sticky under aquaculture!

i like the fact that you actually use pictures instead of saying do this this and this and youre done
kinda hard to know what's supposed to happen if youve never done it before
awesome post

^^^^^second that^^^^^

Super post!! Thanks!

--Diane

Nice work! Those are awesome.

That was so Cool, You made it look so easy! very informative & helpful.
Thanks

Hey thanks!

The procedure works for many other anemones as well. I'll clean up the post tonight (typos! typos! typos!) and put up another photo. As far as I can tell, all of the clones have closed up and are already walking around the tank, looking for a nice place to recuperate. (10 hours overnight)

Very nice!

nice...basicly speachless the pics tell the story

this technique works exelent w/ rose anenomes, and bta's and most other nems also.

heres a pic of a rbta RBTA

~snazzy

what do you feed your S. tapetum's?

~snazzy

Nice adin - any chance of selling one?

Are these S. tapetum? Someone locally just put them up for trade on our club board and all he knows is that they are called rock anemones.

^^^ Nope those are rock...flower anemones.

Nice Adin...
My Porcelain crab has gone missing in action for 2 days now...thinking something made a midnight snack out of him...lol
If he doesnt show up this week...slice time

Izzue

LOL

Hey Adin, bring your blade and come scrape up the couple minis I have on my L/R.

snazzy: my "staple food" is frozen mysis. occasionally i use fish roe (salt cured), krill, slivered raw fish.

argent: no plans for selling in the near future. ask me in 2008!

izzue: let's do some trading!

phix: sure, i'll do it... AFTER YOU CLEAN YOUR GLASS.

I WANT S. TAPETUM OK.

Adin...your on

I think maybe the Anemone Crab...was not so fortunate in this case...LOL
HIs hosting came to a end.
The baby on the pic from way back is almost split all the way now.
Gonna watch to see any hard shell crap coming out...
It was cool while it lasted.

Once I get the baby released Ill pm ya...but to tell ya the truth it looks a lot
like the purple one you got.
Ill get pics later bro. Ill have to tear the whole tank down to get to the main base rock...so Im gonna have to be a little patient for now.

Izzue

Interesting....very nice illustrations!!!

I used to think that anemones like that were just for girlie men--but it moved me. I may have to get some!!!

Oh--How long til you have two complete nems?

Have you ever cut them into more than 2 pieces?????

Great work, directions, and pics, Adin!


Greedy

"24 hour" photos!

The freshly cut anemone halves should attach to a substrate quickly.

mvite: Quarter cuts will work on an individual that's on the larger side. Because of my impatience, I've been slicing my maxis at 2". This species is reported to grow a maximum of 30cm. That's not to say it's impossible... but the strategy is to get the mouth to reform as quickly as possible so you can start feeding again. The more you divide the mouth (more cuts), the longer it will take the frag to reform.

STICKY IT!! That was awesome. Same techniqe when cutting rics?

RED

Adin you should send me some of those just for my post-count alone. I think I contribute a lot to this site in my posts, like this one. USEFUL! lol

No, seriously, good thread worthy of stickying. And GIMME UR BABIES.

red: This will work for rics as well. Of course.. they'll be slower to re-attach, but it'll work.

izzue: I'll bet yours is gigantic now... what's the diameter? I've read every post on RC (twice!) about these anemones and not one person reports a maxi splitting naturally. Minis are like bunnies... but maxis are a whole 'nother story.


...and you think I get compensated for my contribution?

Adin
It hasnt grown that much...mother is like 4 to 5 inches by end of photoperiod.
I think the stress of shipping when I got it from Miguel caused it to start spliting.
Miguel said he had only had a few to split naturally and I was the 1st customer he had sold one to that was spliting. I just checked the calender and I purchased the Mini max on 8-06...and the baby is still not completely seperated.
I think the Porcelain crab may have become dinner for the Mother...I cant find any signs of the crab...lol.
It was killer while the crab was hosting the anemone...but it may have backfired for the little crabbie.

Izzue

Not sure about the fact that mini reproduce like babies since mine hasn't even split in over 2 months that I've had it. Been feeding it like crazy while it sits in the shade also. Might have to do some slicing soon.

One of the side effects of an uneven cut is an uneven anemone! As you can see.. this one healed a little funny due to a bad slice job.

I have had a mini for at least 4 months now and it has not split or grown since. It has settled in a low light / high flow area, and I do not feed it regularly. I heard they were practically invasive, so whats up?

i dose Ca, Sr, Mg, Iodine/Iodide, trace elements and after a couple days of my 1st mini it looks likes its gonna split soon, it has 2 mouths and oval shape/pinched

~snazzy

NICE! post a photo!

ill try tom. lights off alrdy >.>

false alarm, it looked like that it must just have been eating somthing and tried to get its mouth there idk

Adin- What's you're favorite method for getting them off of the rocks?

a mouth-full

Click to view attachment

thats his second feeding in a row like that >.> he sure is hungry
i havent decided if i wana cut him yet what u think?

Jamie: My preferred method is by fingernail.. thumb to be specific. This works best when they anemone is "on the move" (keep in mind on-the-move refers to "anemone time"). An individual that is firmly planted, i.e. has it's foot wedged into a crevice is impossible to peel off. You're either going to have to chip it out (hammer and chisel) or motivated to start walking. The easiest way to get the anemone to move is to place it in an uncomfortable environment. If possible, and you're not in a rush, simply turn the rock upside down. If you can't wait, direct a powerhead at the base of the anemone for a few minutes (repeat as necessary... off and on... off and on).

Snazzy: That's how I do it too! lol! That one's on the small side... about a nickel right? I would wait, thought it is big enough to survive a cut IMO.

adinsxq- When are you going to be hosting an S. tapetum Propagation, slice 'n dice get together? I'm supposed to be getting in about 20 mini carpets in this week.

Whoa! 20! If you need help, bring the 'nems to the SoCal meet and we'll chop them up. I'll bring my super fancy razor blade

How about you bring it to my pad? I has pics of it!

about quarter nickle ya is it a mini or maxi its not really a full pick of it mainly just mysis lol

All you SoCal people with access to group buys ARE TEH SUXORS.

Kthx.

wana sell me 1 or 2? :'|

post a photo when it comes in, neenish

I'll post pics of them plus the NanoCube 6 of my waratah's. Last I counted, I had about 20 large ones (up to 2" wide) and some with green dotted lines on the red bodies and some with really light blue tiny dots on the red bodies and some with large blue dots around the rim of the tentacles. I need to get a good camera that shoots macro-any suggestions would be helpful.

Brian



I wish this was a group buy. These are all for me for the time being. Then once I hook up with Adinsxq, I'll try to slice and dice them and let some so.Cal people get some cheap. Just trying to help out my fellow reefers.

Brian

glad you finally found the waratahs... sorry i was never able to help you out

Speaking of waratahs, have you tried this on any of them? I have some cold water nems I might want to try fragging.