Anemones consume nutrients?

[Ryebreadiest]

Do anemones (like BTAs or rock flowers) consume nutrients from the water column like corals do? Or it is only food they collect like fish? Considering moving all of my rock flowers to my new larger tank but worried about bio load (it has a lot of fish already).

 

[UkiahTheTurtle]

Yeah I’m pretty sure they can just from a quick google search if you want to learn mor though someone else might know better than me

 

[Ryebreadiest]

Apologies you are right, I wasn’t clear enough. Should I treat an anemone that I am spot feeding periodically as a new fish (which will increase my bioload by adding more food/nutrients) or as a new coral (which will consume nutrients)?

 

[Tired]

Sorta both. I'm not sure what the net result of them both absorbing nutrients and pooping a fair amount is. Certainly nowhere near on par with a fish, and not enough to be any significant bioload from a RFA (due to inverts having a much slower metabolism than fish, particularly stationary inverts), but I don't actually know whether a well-fed nem will add more nutrients to the tank than it consumes.

 

[randomfishdude]

Almost all Anenomies are photosynthetic. So they are like corals.
You only haft ti feed em once a week.
But You need to treat it like a anenome. It's diffrent from fish or coral.

 

[Ryebreadiest]

Yeah that’s what I’m thinking. My new 35g has a half dozen fish and a bunch of coral, and seems well balanced. I suppose dumping 20+ RFAs in won’t have much of a swing either way.

 

[randomfishdude]

Yeah that’s what I’m thinking. My new 35g has a half dozen fish and a bunch of coral, and seems well balanced. I suppose dumping 20+ RFAs in won’t have much of a swing either way.

That will shoot your nutrients up beyond readable in a 35.
Thoes would haft to be tiny.
They do still poop.
Anenomies will shoot stuff out of their mouths during the adding process and when you get them. Because of stress.

When u see anenome in a bag you will see all the crap they shoot out.

 

[Ryebreadiest]

That will shoot your nutrients up beyond readable in a 35.
Thoes would haft to be tiny.
They do still poop.
Anenomies will shoot stuff out of their mouths during the adding process and when you get them. Because of stress.

When u see anenome in a bag you will see all the crap they shoot out.

The RFAs all live in a 7g cube with a clownfish who is now in the 35g. I feed them fairly lightly and sparingly, and I haven’t had nutrient issues so far. I might do a few at a time and see how it goes.

 

[randomfishdude]

The RFAs all live in a 7g cube with a clownfish who is now in the 35g. I feed them fairly lightly and sparingly, and I haven’t had nutrient issues so far. I might do a few at a time and see how it goes.

Oh alr.
But yea just do a few.

 

[Ryebreadiest]

Oh alr.
But yea just do a few.

To be fair I have been doing 50% weekly water changes so I may have issues in a bigger tank. And yes some of them are still very small.

 

[Mr_Knightley]

That should not be an issue at all, just add them in small batches. They'll do nothing but catch stray food that your fish happen to miss, the occasional anemone poop (even from 20 nems) won't budge much in terms of parameters.

 

[randomfishdude]

I was thinking you were talking about much larger anenomes not smaller ones.

 

[Ryebreadiest]

I was thinking you were talking about much larger anenomes not smaller ones.

A few are 4-5” but most are golf ball size, maybe a bit bigger. I would like to up the feeding to increase growth but we will see how nutrients hold up. I need to get them on rocks so I can move them more easily haha

 

[GK3]

Yeah that’s what I’m thinking. My new 35g has a half dozen fish and a bunch of coral, and seems well balanced. I suppose dumping 20+ RFAs in won’t have much of a swing either way.

6 fish in a 35? What kind of fish? I’d think that has a much effect on your bioload than anything else.

 

[Ryebreadiest]

6 fish in a 35? What kind of fish? I’d think that has a much effect on your bioload than anything else.

Yes it’s definitely on the upper end, although 2 of these are neon gobies and I only feed once a day. I do a 5 gallon water change twice a week and run a Tunze 9004 skimmer. My wondering was just whether I should count RFAs as a substantial increase in nutrients or a reduction in nutrients from tissue zooanthelle consuming nutrients.

 

[Tired]

FWIW, frequency of feeding means very little re. bioload, since you could feed the same amount 1x a day or spread out to 7x. What matters is that you feed the fish enough, and export nutrients accordingly.

What are the other fish?

 

[GK3]

Yes it’s definitely on the upper end, although 2 of these are neon gobies and I only feed once a day. I do a 5 gallon water change twice a week and run a Tunze 9004 skimmer. My wondering was just whether I should count RFAs as a substantial increase in nutrients or a reduction in nutrients from tissue zooanthelle consuming nutrients.

Anemones aren’t going to consume like corals do. They are photosynthetic and consume organisms, they switch. So your anemones will filter feed organisms suspended in the water column. They will not absorb nitrates. If you spray food in the anemones face everyday and they eat 1/10th of, it’ll pollute your water. If you allow them to get enough light and filter feed, I don’t see you seeing a change in bio load. The brown stringy stuff that comes out of anemones is not waste, it’s zooxanthellae which is the algae that makes them photosynthetic. Their waste will be ammonia though so if you put a ton of anemones in the tank and feed them a meaty diet then yes water quality will be affected.

 

[Tired]

The brown stringy stuff that comes out of anemones is not waste, it’s zooxanthellae which is the algae that makes them photosynthetic.

They do expel zooxanthellae under the right/wrong conditions, but I'm pretty sure anemones do actually poop as well, if fed or catching food. They also (for the species I'm aware of) grow best if fed semi-regularly.

 

[GK3]

They do expel zooxanthellae under the right/wrong conditions, but I'm pretty sure anemones do actually poop as well, if fed or catching food. They also (for the species I'm aware of) grow best if fed semi-regularly.

Correct, that’s why I said their waste is ammonia. Direct target feedings requirement completely depends on the tank.