Not sure what to do with this anenome

churmak · Nov 19, 2019

This anemone was sold to me as an LTA. It has been in my tank now for several months and seems to be doing well. It is sticky and it catches food particles when I feed my fish. It just doesn't want to sit still. It probably moves an inch or two a day. I originally placed it on the sand, but rather than dig in as I was expecting it started climbing up the rocks. It has currently climbed to the top of my aquarium. The problem I have is that I have had to move all of my corals out of its way. It took out a head of my frogspawn and a mushroom before I moved all the corals near it to the sand.I know anenomes move but I thought by getting an LTA that it would only be moving around the bottom of my rocks and sand bed and I could keep my corals away from that.

AllSignsPointToFish · Nov 19, 2019

It could be an LTA. What does the flesh around the mouth look like? My LTA has white, radial stripes.

AllSignsPointToFish · Nov 19, 2019

Typically, LTAs like to have their foot in the sand, not on a hard, rocky surface.

JCOLE · Nov 19, 2019

churmak said:
This anemone was sold to me as an LTA. It has been in my tank now for several months and seems to be doing well. It is sticky and it catches food particles when I feed my fish. It just doesn't want to sit still. It probably moves an inch or two a day. I originally placed it on the sand, but rather than dig in as I was expecting it started climbing up the rocks. It has currently climbed to the top of my aquarium. The problem I have is that I have had to move all of my corals out of its way. It took out a head of my frogspawn and a mushroom before I moved all the corals near it to the sand.I know anenomes move but I thought by getting an LTA that it would only be moving around the bottom of my rocks and sand bed and I could keep my corals away from that.

That looks like a Condy Anemone. What type of lighting do you have? Anemones will move around until they find a place they are comfortable and sit still. I had a Condy that moved around for a month and then found a spot and stayed there for over a year until I manually removed it.

AllSignsPointToFish · Nov 19, 2019

h2oh2o said:
That looks like a Condy Anemone. What type of lighting do you have? Anemones will move around until they find a place they are comfortable and sit still. I had a Condy that moved around for a month and then found a spot and stayed there for over a year until I manually removed it.

I agree it looks more like a Condylactis than an LTA....however, the poor LTAs you see in the LFSs typically don't look like LTAs, either

flsalty · Nov 19, 2019

What do you have in the way of lighting?

flsalty · Nov 19, 2019

h2oh2o said:
That looks like a Condy Anemone. What type of lighting do you have? Anemones will move around until they find a place they are comfortable and sit still. I had a Condy that moved around for a month and then found a spot and stayed there for over a year until I manually removed it.

I didn't see this before I posted. I sort of thought it looked like a Condy as well. If it's a LTA I suspect insufficient lighting.

AllSignsPointToFish · Nov 19, 2019

Different angle for comparison:

Maxx · Nov 19, 2019

That's a condylactis anemone.
M.doreensis have a red/pink foot and always bury in the sand. If it's on the rock, it is absolutely not an M.doreensis, (Long tentacle anemone/Corkscrew anemone).
Condy's rarely host clowns, they are a Caribbean anemone.

churmak · Nov 19, 2019

The tank is a 90g and it has the 72 3w bridgelux led kit from aquastyle online. I was kind of thinking it was a condy instead of an lta because it climbed the rocks. I don't mind that I just would like to get it to stay put. Do I need to get better lighting? My corals all seem happy but I was looking at getting 2 of the 165w viparspectras.

AllSignsPointToFish · Nov 19, 2019

churmak said:
The tank is a 90g and it has the 72 3w bridgelux led kit from aquastyle online. I was kind of thinking it was a condy instead of an lta because it climbed the rocks. I don't mind that I just would like to get it to stay put. Do I need to get better lighting? My corals all seem happy but I was looking at getting 2 of the 165w viparspectras.

If the anemone is reaching for the lights and climbing the rocks to get there, it's probably a result of insufficient lighting. Otherwise, they tend to find areas of lower light intensity in well-lit tanks.