Rock Flower Anemone Information and Appreciation Thread

[coral reefer tx]

I have 5 rock flower nems in my tank.  All added about 10 days ago.  They’ve all stayed within a couple of inches of where I placed them.  But one nem that I placed in partial shade moved just enough to be in full shade and sometimes further withdraws into a tiny overhang cave.  My lighting is not intense, I only have softies and LPS, and am pretty careful to not use more intensity than needed.  Fed the worrisome nem some shrimp yesterday and it ate fine.  
How worried should I be about the one that is withdrawing?  
The other 4 seem happy. 
Any advice would be great!

Thanks

 

[Tired]

If it wants more light, it'll probably go into more light. I've heard of the occasional (rare) nem that stays in the darkness until it's in poor health, but they don't usually do that. 

[SeaFurn]

On 10/15/2020 at 1:31 AM, Tired said:

If it wants more light, it'll probably go into more light. I've heard of the occasional (rare) nem that stays in the darkness until it's in poor health, but they don't usually do that. 

@coral reefer tx - it would take weeks and weeks in the dark for it to deteriorate to a dangerous level. You can keep your eye on their tentacles...they seem to be like fat stores and will thin out if things get bad.  Since the nems are néw to the tank it will take a couple of weeks for them to settle in and find their place. 

[coral reefer tx]

19 minutes ago, SeaFurn said:

@coral reefer tx - it would take weeks and weeks in the dark for it to deteriorate to a dangerous level. You can keep your eye on their tentacles...they seem to be like fat stores and will thin out if things get bad.  Since the nems are néw to the tank it will take a couple of weeks for them to settle in and find their place. 

Good to know.  Is there a minimum amount of feeding that is recommended?  (How often and how much).  I try pretty hard to not over feed the tank. 
Thanks

[SeaFurn]

28 minutes ago, coral reefer tx said:

Good to know.  Is there a minimum amount of feeding that is recommended?  (How often and how much).  I try pretty hard to not over feed the tank. 
Thanks

I feed mine a small amount of pulverized mysis shrimp once per week. Mine also eat pellets and powdered coral food. They really aren’t picky. 
Many others don’t feed theirs directly at all as they get enough left overs from fish feeding. 

[NoOneLikesADryTang]

1 hour ago, SeaFurn said:

@coral reefer tx - it would take weeks and weeks in the dark for it to deteriorate to a dangerous level. You can keep your eye on their tentacles...they seem to be like fat stores and will thin out if things get bad.  Since the nems are néw to the tank it will take a couple of weeks for them to settle in and find their place. 

Sorry, this isn’t a great photo, this guy was in an awkward spot in the tank, but I think it shows what Seafurn is talking about. It’s since completely bounced back. 
 

[coral reefer tx]

3 hours ago, NoOneLikesADryTang said:

Sorry, this isn’t a great photo, this guy was in an awkward spot in the tank, but I think it shows what Seafurn is talking about. It’s since completely bounced back. 
 

Thanks for posting the pic, it helps.   That’s an amazing looking nem. 

[seabass]

Worlds tallest RFA:

 

Reminds me of a Swiss horn (alphorn):

[Tired]

How did an angel's trumpet get into your aquarium? 

 

[Ddcool]

I just got 5 rock flowers a month ago. Yesterday I noticed the biggest one spawning. I checked online for more information and found out they tend to spawn during the winter solstice or spring equinox. I don’t expect any babies as my others are quite small. Interesting that it was the exact day of the winter solstice though!

[LazyFish]

I have one that stretches like that frequently. It's the only one tho I dont know why it's doing it I have about 20 and its the only one.

[seabass]

2 minutes ago, LazyFish said:

I have one that stretches like that frequently. It's the only one tho I dont know why it's doing it I have about 20 and its the only one.

I assume that it's too lazy to move.  It probably likes the place where it's attached, but prefers the light, flow, or availability of food at the level of the disc.  I have RFAs which are lower that the long anemone, so I feel it's not entirely a light issue.

[LazyFish]

I'm not sure I have one right next to it that donsnt and two that are lower on the substrait that dont it's not in a shadow either so idk there in a 20g with x2 ai primes so have sufficient lighting I have trachs and sutch growing at lower levels than the weird o nem too. It stretches even at night and off and on during the day. It spit some huge babies once after some serious stretching I kind of wonder if it's an attempt to dislodge baby nems it seems to do it more when it's got babies to spit. On occasion it spits out a monster.

[mndfreeze]

So I have a question regarding Rock nemmiebois and peppermint shrimp. Is there a risk?  My tank is absolutely INFESTED with aiptasia now and I can't find Berghia nudes for the life of me.  I'm considering slowly converting my mixed reef over to mostly Rockybois and have 2 already.  Will be pissed if I get a peppermint and it destroys em. 

 

Manual removal is not really an option. I've been trying that for years and it seems to cause me nothing but more problems.  I have used aiptasia X, a 5W laser, lemon juice and boiling water in a syringe to no real overall effect.  They pop back up faster than I can kill em and are in impossible to reach spots.

 

 

[seabass]

Certainly don't introduce more anemones until the aiptasia (and shrimp) are gone.  It has been my experience that peppermint shrimp tend to pick at everything (coral, anemones, fan worms, etc).  However, there is a reasonable chance that your two adult RFAs will be alright.

[mndfreeze]

Yeah I'm not a super big fan of peppermints and have always avoided em because they are so hit or miss.  Little picking I expect as shrimp just do shramp thangs. I just don't want them nomming down and killing the things.    One RFA is maybe 3 to 4 inches across, the other is about 2.5 to 3.  Not sure thats classified as adults or not.  

 

I really wish Berghia were more common in the trade.  With how bad aiptasia infestations are in the hobby you would think they would be kept stocked like hermits and snails.  

[banasophia]

54 minutes ago, mndfreeze said:

Yeah I'm not a super big fan of peppermints and have always avoided em because they are so hit or miss.  Little picking I expect as shrimp just do shramp thangs. I just don't want them nomming down and killing the things.    One RFA is maybe 3 to 4 inches across, the other is about 2.5 to 3.  Not sure thats classified as adults or not.  

 

I really wish Berghia were more common in the trade.  With how bad aiptasia infestations are in the hobby you would think they would be kept stocked like hermits and snails.  

This is always my dilemma too... I have been considering peppermints or an aiptasia eating filefish (they have captive bred biota ones in stock at live aquaria), but I think there’s a good chance either could harm my rockflowers, so I decided to play it safe and go with berghias again. I just ordered some... they do have some in stock at salty underground and they have free shipping for orders over $75. 

 

https://saltyunderground.com/order-confirmation?id_cart=83&id_module=62&id_order=26&key=9ec2b803a176168f3b813d2515935b2a&paypal_order=7K773689PB9273906&paypal_transaction=32J485563J728112M

[mndfreeze]

How was their shipping and everything?  I've had so many bad experiences with online vendors that I tend to avoid them except for dry goods or super hardy / don't matter much stuff like CUC.

 

 

[Tired]

I've ordered from SU a couple times, and shipping has been fine. Overnight, everything packed well. Two frags had aiptasia on the plug, which is funny for a place that sells berghia, but that's easy to fix. 

 

SaltCritters is good if you want baby RFAs (an inch to an inch and a half, mostly) of interesting colors and patterns. I think theirs are captive-bred, so they have some patterns that seem to be relatively unusual in the wild. 

 

RFAs ship just fine by 2-3 day shipping, assuming the weather is okay. Overnight is better, but priority shipping works too. They're actually decently hardy. 

[banasophia]

6 hours ago, mndfreeze said:

How was their shipping and everything?  I've had so many bad experiences with online vendors that I tend to avoid them except for dry goods or super hardy / don't matter much stuff like CUC.

 

 

I’ve ordered berghias from them twice before and I’ve been very happy with them. It takes about 6 weeks before you start to see the aiptasia disappear.

[mndfreeze]

Well I got my berghia today.  Shipping was fast and they seemed healthy, although MUCH smaller than what I ordered. I ordered the half inch boys and these are like 1cm.  Of course the first one I tried to pipet into the tank stuck to the inside of the stem of the pipet so I had to blow a lot harder to get him out, he went flying, right into the disc of an aiptasia halfway around the tank.  Managed to suck him out but no idea if the sting will kill him or not.  They have all moved into crevices in the rock at least.

 

Salty also completely forgot my order of bumblebee snails.  I emailed em and have yet to hear anything.  Kinda annoyed even though its only 15 bucks.

[SeaFurn]

Peeked into the tank this evening and saw a baby RFA swirling around in the water. I quickly shut off all the pumps and sucked it up with the turkey baster. I put it in a low flow area and started looking for mom. When there’s one there’s usually more. I found her all scrunched up in the sand at the far end of the tank. I then watched as she had 8 more which I was able suck up each one, one by one, as she had them. 
I waited about 30 minutes to let them all get attached and then turned on the pumps one at a time to make sure they didn’t get blown away. 

Mom is green with red tentacles. 4 of the babies are green with white tentacles. At least one is red with white tentacles and I’m not sure about the others yet. Here’s a pic of some of them (purple circles) after I placed them in the lower flow area near the skirt of another adult where they will probably stay near. Love getting new babies! 

 

 

[Tired]

Ah, colorful infants!

[LazyFish]

They usualy have white tenticles when first born it usualy changes after a bit unless the final color is actualy white or grey alredy.

[DaveDe]

I've picked up my first RFA's in the last month. I bought them from different stores. Both stayed exactly where I put them. The first one I think has it's foot in the rubble, the red one I think has gone down to the glass bottom. The odd thing is they seem to be very different in a few ways - esp. in that the yellow one stays about the same size no matter the lighting, etc. while the red one is huge when the lights are out for awhile and retracts when the lights come on. I'll have to see what diversity there is with RFA types. The yellow one was called an Ultra. I'm not sure if that makes a difference. I have a 14.26 G tank and didn't want a BTA because of their size down the road - so these guys are perfect. Not a great photo - I need to get my macro lens on these guys. 

Update. The term "Ultra" appears to have to do with the colors in these Anenomes. Standard or just "Rock Flower Anenomes", have two colors. Ultras have three. And then there's another term or two above that for 4-5 colors I believe. Correct me if I'm wrong.