Tube Anemone

[FishFreak77]

Yesterday my parents bought what my lfs called a tube worm. It looked awfully weird for a worm though because it had tentacles and the lfs owner said she had fed it some krill. Last night i surfed the web and found it to be a tube anemone! It looks really awesome and has purple tentacles with a neon-green center. I know they are non-photosynthetic and that they like to feed of captured brine and mysis at night when they are fully extended. Is there anything else I need to know. I thought of getting one for my tank also because they had a deep purple one also that was a little smaller.

 

Also, this may be a dumb question but, do they mess up the tank like other nems when they die? Are they so aggressive that they will capture and kill the fish in your aquarium? My lfs said they would but i found it a little extreme since no one really ever has that problem with anems.Would I just be better off with a RBTA or something? I have done my homework and my levels are exellent.

 

Thank You

[icenine]

Here is a good link regarding tube anemone care:

 

Tube anemone info

 

There are some important bits regarding the sand bed available to it or the creation of a PVC housing that is 1.5 times as long and as wide as the animal as a substitue.

[FishFreak77]

That was a very helpful sight! Thanks. I would still like to know if it would mess up my levels if it died like a regular anemone. Also, with that PVC thing do I put a little sand in the bottom of the pipe, put in the nem, and then fill it the rest of the way up? It said on th website that it grew in a hard tube, but the one at my lfs have tubes that look like a pile of crap. Does it mean they are not healthy or could it be a different species?

 

ikuwaseven- I need your opinion since you have one.

[baldeaux]

I love my pink tube anemone. I've had mine for over 3 months now, after my BTA was sucked into the overflow. With any dead anemones, as long as you removed it ASAP, there shouldn't be much of a mess to hassle with. Mine was killed only an hour or so before I rushed to remove it. Handling it (SLIMY) was NOT a pleasurable task.

 

Back to the tube...I buried half of the tube sleeve ("pile of crap") into the substrate. Because it has the tendency to lean towards its neighboring corals with stinging tentacles, I've wedged a couple of LR around to immobilize it. Because of the stinging tentacles, I've considered housing it in a tube to further isolate it from other corals. I'd recommend doing a nightly inspection to observe its reaching extent.