BTA Breeding

[Friday24]

I know about the BTA's asexual cloning, as my RBTA split a few months ago....but has anyone tried to breed 2 different BTA's? Like a Rose and a Lemon Drop...and get a cool morph out of it.

 

[seamonkey84]

Only one or two nem species have been raised from spawn as far as I know, one being a rock nem. Bta have not be bred in captivity

 

[Russellaqua]

The bubble-tip anemone, Entacmaea quadricolor, has spawned at the Waikiki Aquarium. I've never heard of it happening in home aquaria though. Some important things to remember though if you did try to get them to spawn is that they will need pristine water quality, and that the spawning event(s) will very quickly degrade that water quality. Even at the Waikiki Aquarium the spawning so heavily degraded the water quality (by reducing oxygen levels) that many clownfish were left gasping or laying on the bottom, and a bicolor angel died as a result. Even they had to perform a 50% water change, add airstones, and increase flow in the tank. Granted, this was a 350 gallon tank with several dozen anemones spawning, but you get the idea. I suspect tank filtration and skimming would also kill a great many of the fertilized eggs. This is a fairly slow growing species as well, so should you be successful it would take quite a while before you really knew what you had. All that being said, I would not in any way discourage you from trying. The worst that happens is they don't spawn and only split, giving you a nice tank full of anemones to trade or sell. If they do spawn, great! Keep us informed if you do decide to go ahead and try a breeding program.

 

[Friday24]

thanks for all the info! what gave me the idea for this in the first place is the BTA's on the SexyCorals website...their ultra looked like it was bred to have the colors it does....although now i'm pretty sure that isn't the case. I really like theirs but price is a quite a bit on the high side for me to convince the wife i need it!! lol maybe i'll just put them together and see what happens....if i can find a lemondrop now.

 

[Trex]

I actually had an E. quadricolor spawn in my 75 about 8-10 years ago. When I realized what was going on, it was too late to determine if only a female, or male, or both had actually spawned. Years later I sold off all of them (( and darn near all the rock from that tank -- darn mushrooms and yellow polyps )), and I noticed at least 5 small fairly bleached E. quads. Those could have been the result of the spawn, but I am leaning towards them being clones that never came out into the light. To the best of my knowledge this was a "good" spawn.

About 4 years ago I had an S. haddoni spawn -- female, and the other one in that tank didn't respond -- unfortunately it was a stress spawn (( main pump ran dry when I was in for emergency back surgery )), and the anemone was never the same.

Pictures of the S. haddoni spawn,