The two-legged anemone.

[Andreww]

Couple months ago, my BTA split, it was a fast process which left me with two small cute anemones. Well I left them alone and started feeding after the mouth healed on both halves.

 

Shortly after that, one of the already split nems, started splitting again, but at the base, meaning the leg and not the oral disc. I thought ok, nice, it’s gonna be fast again, but no, it’s been like that for the past month. No splitting anymore, but it has 2 “legs” and seems like it’s gonna stay this way.

 

They were both nice pieces until they split, and being smaller , clowns stressed them a lot to the point they lost color so I relocated the clowns to the sump and with feeding every 2 days they’re coloring back up nicely but still, I’m stumped on why it looks happy with 2 legs and not splitting anymore. I’ve never seen something quite like this.

Ive attached some pictures in hope someone will shed some light on what this BTA is doing.

Thanks !

[Andreww]

I guess no one has seen this before either. I’ll just wait and see, maybe it’ll get 24” across and still keep it’s 2 legs; who knows...

[kinetic]

How sure are you that they were stressed because of the clowns? I know that they'll split when stressed, and maybe splitting again because they're even more stressed. I have seen anemones bombarded by clowns without being stressed out. Anyway, just a word of caution to see if anything else might be bothering them. Loss of color can be due to light, params, etc.

[Andreww]

Thanks for the reply, this anemone was in the tank for a year or so. Very nice specimen, kept its bubbles all the time. So when it split, clowns didn’t really give the halves any break, they were constantly thrusting and pushing them day and night. That’s when the decline in color and size happened.

Ever since I removed the clowns and put them in the sump, the anemones are slowly coming back to their former glory. 

Thats why I assumed it’s pretty safe to say the clowns were the culprit. I also assume it’s pretty well known a clown bigger than a nem is not advisable, yet one of my clowns is on the big side and pretty aggressive.

Water is as it’s always been:

ALK:9

CAL:450

MAG:1300

Nitrates:5

Phosphate close to 0

Temp :77

Salinity 1.026

 

....very minimal amount of algae in the display tank, almost non existent, refugium has algae in sheets, grows a ton but so does chaeto.

 

I’ll have to wait and see I guess...

[kinetic]

Ah right, if the clown is way bigger, then that can definitely be a problem. Goodluck! Seems like you're doing the right thing. Super strange about the anemone still having 2 feet, but I wonder if it was just in the middle of being stressed out, then decided it wasn't stressed anymore and stayed partly split.

[Andreww]

That could be a reason, don’t know. I will keep  this thread updated in case something happens and it finally splits . 

Thanks for your replies Kinetic??

[Andreww]

I’m still trying to figure out what is it that it’s doing. Being nice ,big and fluffy then going back to looking like this for a couple hours then back.

Trying to split? It’s crazy, it likes having 2 legs I guess...

[Andreww]