When will I be ready for a ANEMONE

[homer1475]

By the stark white sand and rocks, that tank is way to young for an anemone. Specially if this is your first marine tank.

Once you start seeing some life growing in there on it's own, then you'll be fine getting a nem.

FWIW.... Even if you provide the clowns a nem, they may never host in it. BTA's are not natural hosts for clownfish.

 

[JoJosReef]

Second what @MaxTremors says. The Marine 3.0 is risky with a BTA. Had the same light. My RBTA had a slow death and I learned from it. I didn't have the setting maxed out, just what I thought looked nice (and low whites for algae), and with that light you need the whites cranked up. The lights everyone is recommending will serve you better even if you get some shadier spots (low light LPS?). If you need budget strip lights with some power, take a look at 21LEDusa ReefbarPros or the pricier Reefbrites.

Also, I don't think BTAs are the easiest nems. Rock flower anemones seem much easier, especially the ultra colorful ones that are often smaller and taken from deeper--I have a larger green RFA that is a super light hog and presumably from the Florida shallows.

 

[Koh23]

Indeed, getting rbta only for purpose of hosting ocelaris is mostly uselles....

Captive breed ocelaris probably will not host any anemone, or in small % of cases it will, by pure chance....

Wild caught on the other hand will host it almost imediately, no matter that rbta is not "right type" of anemone....

So, if u want to have anemones and u are ready for all the risks, why not.... I have 13 on rock, it looks great, sadly my ocelaris shows no interest at all....

 

[Hannahmunt]

77cm/30” is a tough width. You could likely get away with one Noopsyche, but the outer edges would be pretty low PAR. Any puck style light is going to have this problem on a tank that size, it’s right in between where one light would be sufficient and two lights are necessary.

Indeed, getting rbta only for purpose of hosting ocelaris is mostly uselles....

Captive breed ocelaris probably will not host any anemone, or in small % of cases it will, by pure chance....

Wild caught on the other hand will host it almost imediately, no matter that rbta is not "right type" of anemone....

So, if u want to have anemones and u are ready for all the risks, why not.... I have 13 on rock, it looks great, sadly my ocelaris shows no interest at all....

Oh really. My clowns are juvenile at the moment, the shop said I’d need an anenamone for them.

 

[Florida Man]

If you wanna be really safe, when your tank completely stabilizes and coralline starts to grow... could be 4-6 months and past the ugly phases. I know that nobody wants to hear that and most will get one sooner, but be prepared for the mess of a dying 'nem if it goes south.

BTAs are very hardy in a solid setup, but really nasty when they die.

I waited 8 months before adding one in mine. It took a month for clown to start hosting in it.

 

[Koh23]

Two tanks....in one, wild ocelaris, in other tank breed....

First tank, month old, anemone + wild ocelaris = instant host... literally, as soon as i put them in water, straight into anemone...

Second tank, 7 months old, anemone + breed ocelaris = no interest, for months now... they swim little around, approach, but nothing.... bad luck i guess....

And no, they don't need anemone, they will host...well, something, anything... mine hosted overflow box...

 

[mindme]

Oh really. My clowns are juvenile at the moment, the shop said I’d need an anenamone for them.

You don't need to have an anemone for them. I do enjoy watching mine however.

As for the topic of this thread, it's not really about how old the tank is, it's about how stable it is. I put a RBTA in my 29g after only 2 weeks. But I've been in the hobby for more than 10 years and it has a low bioload(only 2 clowns) in it. And that's it. So keeping it stable is not really hard. I had a plan, and I also had a backup plan with a LFS in case things went south.

Meanwhile I have a 180g tank that is about 1.5 years old, and I would maybe just now consider adding an anemone. I won't, because I would personally never put an anemone in a tank with other coral(most anyway). They move, kill things around them, and my 1 anemone has quickly become 3 anemones and all 3 are large and probably going to split again soon. The 180g has a very high bioload, it has a variety of coral that use elements, etc. Stability has taken time. You can't really say 6 months, 12 months or whatever. In that tank I'm not doing water changes and have to replenish elements and extract nutrients because it's a mixed reef. It's been quite a bit of trial and error and a few surprises. Not stable.

If there is any minimum time put on it, then it would be on the person rather than the tank. You need the experience to know when things are stable and that you're going to be able to keep them stable. And when you have that, you'll know then when it's ok to put in anemone or not.

 

[Chrisv.]

I'd wait until you have spots of coralline algae that are about 1 cm in diameter. Dogmatic timelines are silly. If your tank has coralline growing well, it's stable enough.

But you absolutely do not need an anemone for a clown. They will be just as happy without one. I tried for a year to get my clown to live in an anemone. No luck. Eventually I got tired of the anemone stinging everything and it had to go.

Whatever you do, get a captive bred anemone. They survive much better and if you end up killing it, well, no harm done to the wild reef.

 

[Hannahmunt]

I'd wait until you have spots of coralline algae that are about 1 cm in diameter. Dogmatic timelines are silly. If your tank has coralline growing well, it's stable enough.

But you absolutely do not need an anemone for a clown. They will be just as happy without one. I tried for a year to get my clown to live in an anemone. No luck. Eventually I got tired of the anemone stinging everything and it had to go.

Whatever you do, get a captive bred anemone. They survive much better and if you end up killing it, well, no harm done to the wild reef

You don't need to have an anemone for them. I do enjoy watching mine however.

As for the topic of this thread, it's not really about how old the tank is, it's about how stable it is. I put a RBTA in my 29g after only 2 weeks. But I've been in the hobby for more than 10 years and it has a low bioload(only 2 clowns) in it. And that's it. So keeping it stable is not really hard. I had a plan, and I also had a backup plan with a LFS in case things went south.

Meanwhile I have a 180g tank that is about 1.5 years old, and I would maybe just now consider adding an anemone. I won't, because I would personally never put an anemone in a tank with other coral(most anyway). They move, kill things around them, and my 1 anemone has quickly become 3 anemones and all 3 are large and probably going to split again soon. The 180g has a very high bioload, it has a variety of coral that use elements, etc. Stability has taken time. You can't really say 6 months, 12 months or whatever. In that tank I'm not doing water changes and have to replenish elements and extract nutrients because it's a mixed reef. It's been quite a bit of trial and error and a few surprises. Not stable.

If there is any minimum time put on it, then it would be on the person rather than the tank. You need the experience to know when things are stable and that you're going to be able to keep them stable. And when you have that, you'll know then when it's ok to put in anemone or not.

Thank you, I will hold off on the anemone, I want to keep soft corals so don’t want them being stung

 

[Koh23]

I keep only soft and lps, not into sticks....

And at every moment i have 10+ nems in tank.

Proper lighting and flow, ocassional feeding and they stay in place, newer had any problems. They occasionaly move a bit to left or right, but newer detach themselfs....

 

[mindme]

I keep only soft and lps, not into sticks....

And at every moment i have 10+ nems in tank.

Proper lighting and flow, ocassional feeding and they stay in place, newer had any problems. They occasionaly move a bit to left or right, but newer detach themselfs....

Yeah, my first anemone hasn't moved since it found it's spot. It moved around the tank for the first 2 or 3 days, found a place it liked and has stayed there since. The splits are also still pretty close as well, moved around a bit, found a spot and stayed.

But I put my other coral directly on the rocks and don't use plugs in the tank. I can't move them. If a split or the original for whatever reasons starts to move around, there is nothing I can do about it. Also mine seem to get pretty big before they split. 18 inches across at times. So I won't mix them. I keep xenia's with them, and I have some green trash paly's in the tank also.

I'm working on a 25g cube to put them in now. It'll just be xenia's and the anemones. It was an AIO, but I removed the back wall and drilled the back for an overflow. I'm hoping to get all the flow coming from the return pump and no power heads. Hopefully at worse I can add power heads to the back wall.

...if I can figure out a way to move the anemones and get them off the rock.