Mixing wild nems with aquacutured
- Thread starter LiveRockmia
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Ive read where there' some kind of bacterial infection that spreads from wild caught but I have several freshly imported specimens mixed with mine and so far so good....
D-Nak
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If you're ever on the Facebook sunburst anemone forum, the guys over there insist that there's a problem mixing wild BTAs with what they call aquacultured/domesticated. I personally can't correlate the two because it implies that there's a set time period where a wild nem becomes domesticated, which makes absolutely no sense to me.
However, what reef lover states regarding bacterial infections is what I would consider to be the real issue at hand. And maybe there is some truth to the notion that domesticated nems become less resistant (or more resistant?) to these infections over time. It's more related to the bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics though, and not the nem itself.
There is also the possibility of allelopathy, where nems fight via chemical signals, but the debate is still out on that as well. Science will tell you that allelopathy isn't a very effective method where we're dealing with literally an ocean of water, so it only would work in extremely close quarters. If so, then wouldn't physical defense via stinging with nematocysts be a better explanation?
We must also raise the question of solitary versus colonial anemones, BTAs being the prime example where we have individual nems that split all the time, and large specimens that never split.
Sorry for the long winded response, but it just goes to show that the answer isn't a simple "yes" or "no" to mixing BTAs.
So, long story short, the best practice is to QT a new BTA for at least two weeks in its own tank, completely isolated from the DT (no water moving from either) and when introduced, definitely watch for potential issues (random deflations, moving for no reason especially when no movement was seen for a long time, etc.).
However, what reef lover states regarding bacterial infections is what I would consider to be the real issue at hand. And maybe there is some truth to the notion that domesticated nems become less resistant (or more resistant?) to these infections over time. It's more related to the bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics though, and not the nem itself.
There is also the possibility of allelopathy, where nems fight via chemical signals, but the debate is still out on that as well. Science will tell you that allelopathy isn't a very effective method where we're dealing with literally an ocean of water, so it only would work in extremely close quarters. If so, then wouldn't physical defense via stinging with nematocysts be a better explanation?
We must also raise the question of solitary versus colonial anemones, BTAs being the prime example where we have individual nems that split all the time, and large specimens that never split.
Sorry for the long winded response, but it just goes to show that the answer isn't a simple "yes" or "no" to mixing BTAs.
So, long story short, the best practice is to QT a new BTA for at least two weeks in its own tank, completely isolated from the DT (no water moving from either) and when introduced, definitely watch for potential issues (random deflations, moving for no reason especially when no movement was seen for a long time, etc.).
LiveRockmia
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Thank you very much for the info. These two particular specimen in the picture separated after a few hours but nobody looks stung or anything like that
