Rock Flower Anemone Information and Appreciation Thread

[SeaFurn]

56 minutes ago, Tired said:

I had amphipods do that. Caught the little buggers at it! Only the ones that were close to their hangout areas, though. The nems away from where the pods live are fine.

Was just feeding the fish and pulled up that rock to find a 3” bristle worm! That has to be the cause don’t ya think?? Feed the worm to the matriarch nem! (Pic below)

 

 

 

[Tired]

I've never heard of bristleworms eating healthy anemones or corals, though. People claim they do, but usually it's either an unhealthy coral, or the person has something being eaten and just suspects bristleworms. Fireworms eat coral, though. Did you take a pic of it before feeding it off? 

 

I know my amphipods did the damage, because I saw them doing it. Healthy anemones, if a bit small, that I placed in an area the amphipods happened to like. I saw them, more than once, doing that little eating head motion on the edge of a tentacle-free patch of anemone. 

[SeaFurn]

5 minutes ago, Tired said:

I've never heard of bristleworms eating healthy anemones or corals, though. People claim they do, but usually it's either an unhealthy coral, or the person has something being eaten and just suspects bristleworms. Fireworms eat coral, though. Did you take a pic of it before feeding it off? 

 

I know my amphipods did the damage, because I saw them doing it. Healthy anemones, if a bit small, that I placed in an area the amphipods happened to like. I saw them, more than once, doing that little eating head motion on the edge of a tentacle-free patch of anemone. 

No I didn’t take a pic of it. I hurried and grabbed it with the tongs before it started burying itself. It looked like a normal bristle worm just one of the biggest I’ve ever had. 

I guess I’ll soon find out if that was the cause or not. 

[Tired]

I know plenty of people have lots of bristleworms and no problems, but I suppose you could have had a weird one, or a different species. 

 

I can tell you, the tentacles will regrow pretty fast if you keep the nem fed. Though if enough tentacles get eaten, feeding it might get a bit trickier.

[NoOneLikesADryTang]

Have you had hair algae recently? I had a breakout of HA, and it definitely impacted the size of the tentacles. 

[fishfreak0114]

Having found some rfa’s on sale, I’m debating getting a couple more (have one rn).  How likely is it that I can make them sit where I want? I was thinking if I use a piece of rock in a container to (hopefully) help them settle on that rock and then place it on the sand bed. My current rfa sits where I can really appreciate it 😕 I also don’t want my coral to get stung if they wander!

[NoOneLikesADryTang]

7 minutes ago, fishfreak0114 said:

Having found some rfa’s on sale, I’m debating getting a couple more (have one rn).  How likely is it that I can make them sit where I want? I was thinking if I use a piece of rock in a container to (hopefully) help them settle on that rock and then place it on the sand bed. My current rfa sits where I can really appreciate it 😕 I also don’t want my coral to get stung if they wander!

I think it depends on the individual. I’ve got some that never move. Even when they got moved to another tank, and the flow/lighting was different, they didn’t move from their rock. I’ve also had a handful that seemed to take a stroll around the tank regularly. 

[Tired]

You should place them directly where you want them, and corral them in at that spot, instead of letting them get settled and then moving them. They like to shove their foot into a crevice. RFAs as a general rule are very unlikely to move, unless something is wrong, though no one can guarantee you won't get one that likes to wander. 

 

The good news is, their sting is pretty weak. It's rare for them to actually do any real harm to a coral they wander into, they just annoy the heck out of it until they move on. 

[NoOneLikesADryTang]

1 hour ago, Tired said:

You should place them directly where you want them, and corral them in at that spot, instead of letting them get settled and then moving them. They like to shove their foot into a crevice. RFAs as a general rule are very unlikely to move, unless something is wrong, though no one can guarantee you won't get one that likes to wander. 

 

The good news is, their sting is pretty weak. It's rare for them to actually do any real harm to a coral they wander into, they just annoy the heck out of it until they move on. 

I disagree, respectfully, with a lot of this post. There are some that never stop wandering. I’ve got 70-80 in a tank, and about half a dozen move regularly. There’s no way to keep them in a place if they decide they want to wander. There’s nothing wrong with the parameters, or under your logic they’d all be moving... Which isn’t happening. The majority find a place, and don’t move much(usually just a few inches) if at all from there, but some never really settle in for the long term. 
 

I also disagree about their sting being weak. It is weaker than a bubble tip, but it will sting corals. I’ve had multiple SPS species get stung by them, and it’s clear to see the SPS is affected. 

[Tired]

Hm, guess there are more wandering individuals than I'd thought. You do have one heck of a sample size. Still, 1/12 wandering isn't too bad- better than other anemones, where they'll just periodically get up and move. A non-wander-inclined RFA will even stay in place if you change something, half the time. 

 

They'll certainly affect a coral if they sting it, but they don't seem to be able to do any permanent damage just from wandering into something. Mine have bumped acans, zoas, and the edge of a sympodium (mostly from the hermits pushing frags around), and the coral they're touching sure closes up, but it opens pretty quickly after they're separated. I had a frag of zoas that were knocked directly onto a RFA and did stay closed for awhile after that, but they were on it overnight, they didn't just have it wander against them. It's not like some LPS, for example, where one of them meeting another results in one melting. It'd be a nightmare if, say, acan echinata could move. 

[Garf]

On August 18th, I saw my RFA spawn. This was on a new moon, and the same day someone else posted in their journal about theirs spawning, thought that was cool. 

 

Male spawning, lasted about an hour

 

Video under moon lights

 

 

Female moving eggs around mouth

 

 

 

 

[Tired]

Anyone have any experience getting these guys to recover from bleaching? I have one that had a bad time somewhere in the supply chain, maybe under the LFS lights, and lost a fight with some sort of aggressive coral. It's healed the damage to itself (just missing tentacles), but hasn't regained any color, and in fact may have lost a tiny bit. I had to put it in a cup attached to the side of the tank (in the tank) so my porcelain crab would stop trampling it, I think that was stressing it out. It seemed to be improving when I was feeding it every couple days, so I'm going to continue doing that, but the porcelain was preventing me from feeding it for the last week or so. Little food thief. 

 

Wondering if anyone can tell me about a bleached rock flower they had, and what they did about it. In the meantime, I'm going with the formula I see online for bleached nems- lowish light, low flow, feed small amounts of food frequently but maybe not quite daily. 

[LazyFish]

I had one bleach quite a bit with shipping it took a long time to recover frequent feedings are must and low flow/stress is important for recovery.

[Tired]

It ate some reef roids when I tried tonight, which I'm pleased with. It wouldn't make any real effort to eat while the crab was on it, so I'm pretty sure it's feeling better in the isolation cup, it's expanded a bit more. I know RFAs usually get used to being trampled by a porcelain crab after a bit, but I think the poor thing was already too stressed to deal with a new problem. The porcelain crab has now moved to a completely healthy anemone that doesn't seem to notice its presence, which is nice. 

 

When you say frequently, how often does that mean? Is daily too much? I know they need time to digest and poop. I'm also not sure how much to feed it. Is a piece of mysis about the size of its closed mouth appropriate? It really responds well to reef roids, so I'm thinking a tiny sprinkling of those and a little piece of mysis at a time would be good- the roids to get its attention, the mysis for the bulk of the calories.

 

It's in very low flow right now, and has something it can cram its foot under, so I think it should be happy. It's also away from the amphipods, so they can't bother it. 

[SeaFurn]

So this is a new one for me. One of my nems, who is perfectly healthy and open, detached from the bottom sometime yesterday and is just sitting on the sand.  A few times it got caught up in the current and started blowing around. It even spent part of the day upside down. I turned the pumps off for quite awhile hoping that it would reattach but it just won't.  I inspected it's foot and it looks fine.  I've put a clear cup with holes cut in the top over it so it doesn't get blown around.  I have no idea why it won't attach.  Any one ever had this happen or any suggests as to how to get it to attach?  

[Tired]

Weird. Maybe something in its old spot was bothering it, and it hasn't decided it wants to reattach yet? Or maybe it wanted to wander around and is having a hard time keeping its grip on the sand to crawl instead of blowing around. A cup seems like a good idea, or tucking it into a low-flow area. 

[SeaFurn]

1 hour ago, Tired said:

Weird. Maybe something in its old spot was bothering it, and it hasn't decided it wants to reattach yet? Or maybe it wanted to wander around and is having a hard time keeping its grip on the sand to crawl instead of blowing around. A cup seems like a good idea, or tucking it into a low-flow area. 

Yeah, so weird.  I went ahead and gently removed all the little pieces of sand from its foot so that it was just bare. The foot looks fine. Then I cleared some sand from an area of the glass and put it directly on that.  Not sure that it's even taking hold of that yet - but yet it's still open and seemingly happy.  I've still got the cup over it.  I have no idea what's up with this one. 

[kowla]

If I was looking to buy like 20 rock anemone for breeding purposes where would I go? I'm only looking for the highest quality specimens on the market 

[NoOneLikesADryTang]

56 minutes ago, kowla said:

If I was looking to buy like 20 rock anemone for breeding purposes where would I go? I'm only looking for the highest quality specimens on the market 

The two I would recommend most, and I’ve bought from just about everyone, is Got Corals and Foxy Saltwater. I’m not sure what you’re hoping to accomplish with breeding, but it takes years for these guys to grow to size that’s decent. 

[kowla]

Thanks! I'm not looking to accomplish anything quickly that's for sure; with the breeding cycles annual at best lol. 

[Proudgeek]

One of my rfa’s was just spawning!  First time I’ve ever seen it after several years.  Tank is filthy so i’m not posting evidence... plus its MA rated.

[SeaFurn]

On 9/16/2020 at 1:46 AM, kowla said:

Thanks! I'm not looking to accomplish anything quickly that's for sure; with the breeding cycles annual at best lol. 

I’m breading them and as @NoOneLikesADryTang says, they are slow growers, but you should be able to get a few spawns per year. What are your plans? 

[seabass]

 

[Tired]

Aw, confetti! 

[kowla]

So the palpable irony here is that I bought some rock flower on September 17th and they had a spawning event on September 19th, I have confirmed eggs inside of the mouths of 4 female flower anemone. pics attached of ones bearing eggs. Sorry for the quality, I have turned a Tupperware upside down over the rock to protect them from anything picking at the eggs.