I Fragged My Carpet Last Night

[MJI]

Phil, you know I respect you anyway man, but wow - you were brave with this one - and kudos to you for it.

Sorry about the losses, but you took a great step here IMO.

I'll be watching closely mate.

M

[Flighty]

Nice! I want to know how many PMs you've gotten asking for a slice

[phender]

I am very proud of everyone. I haven't recieved a single pm. It is a little premature for that anyway.

[55semireef]

Phender, now what happens when both of your carpets reach that size again? Now you will have two large carpets, not one. Are you going to keep cutting them right down the middle or are you just going to let them grow and stay with two? BTW, what kind of lighting are you using.


Sorry about your fish.

[Dan]

Very sad about the fish. A lesson for us all.

Another great experiment by Phil. Your lighting experiment on that blue gigantea was excellent. Planning any nip and tuck on that one?

Dan

[phender]

Originally posted by 55semireef
Phender, now what happens when both of your carpets reach that size again? Now you will have two large carpets, not one. Are you going to keep cutting them right down the middle or are you just going to let them grow and stay with two? BTW, what kind of lighting are you using.


Sorry about your fish.

If both the pieces live I will find a home for one of them, maybe in one of my other tanks, maybe in someone else's. If this works out and it gets too big again in a couple years, I suppose I will consider cutting it again. This is a seldom imported species, I'm pretty sure I can find homes for the divisions.

The anemone is in a 48" 50gal tank with 4-65watt PC lights. Two are 10K, two are actinic. Its not exactly high tech. The tank has been set up for over 16 years. It is so old that it has wild collected Florida live rock in it. For the first 10 years or so, it had 5-40watt normal fluorescents for light. It does a good job with most anemones, LPS, and leather corals (including yellows), just can't keep those pretty colored sticks.

[ClownReef®]

Sorry for all of your losses...but great things are proven and discovered by taking high risks..congrats!

[phender]

Originally posted by Dan
Very sad about the fish. A lesson for us all.

Another great experiment by Phil. Your lighting experiment on that blue gigantea was excellent. Planning any nip and tuck on that one?

Dan

Thanks. The gigantea is doing pretty well. It had a little growth spurt recently when I increased my return pump from a Sen 700 to a Mag 9.5. It has always gone through a SQWD to alternate the current, but I changed the output from a flat nozzle spraying over the anemone to a 1" elbow that washes over the anemone.(the return hose is still 3/4") It acts a little more like a surge now, and the little gigantea seems to like it better. Not planning on cutting it, probably ever.

I never would have tried cutting the Merten's if it wasn't such a hardy specimen. I actually considered giving it to one of the big public aquariums in the area, Aquarium of the Pacific or The Stephen Birch Aquarium, but the last time it tried to give away my 18" crispa, neither of them had room. Their clownfish/anemone displays were too small or too crowded and they didn't want an anemone in their large coral displays for fear it might sting their corals.

It is something that I have been considering for about 6 months and it just seemed like the time was right. Either way, it is providing information for future aquaculturists.

One other thing to those who are reading this thread. Please do not go out and slice your anemone just because I did. Give it some time to see how my attempt works out. I have had this anemone for 3 years and believe me, it has been as bulletproof as any anemone I have ever had, and I've had a lot of them. We need to give this a month or two to see what is going to happen before you get dollar signs in your heads and start chopping up your colored haddonis.

[BonsaiNut]

Phil; I know you mention it here and there in this thread, but I think you should point out that you fragged you S. mertensii - NOT an S. haddoni or S. gigantea. In your post title you say "fragged my carpet" and I'm not sure everyone knows there are several different carpet anemones out there...

[MDP]

Phil.

Well said about not cutting any carpet and the reasons you decided to cut yours (i.e. bulletproof).

My Gigantea is similar in many ways, been through ph crashes, o/d on Kalk and also been seriously mangled by a couple of powerheads. But it keeps on growing. Been with me for 3 years now and just getting bigger and bigger. That's why I plan on dividing it on 16 September.

I agree to try this with many carpets, especially newly imported ones is just going to end up with a lot of dead carpets.

Matt

[OrionN]

Looking good Phil.

[bureau13]

Not that it has anything to do with the REAL point of the thread (anemone fragging) but the massive fish death now has me officially scared to death. I have a haddoni, a magnifica (up on the glass, but I'm not moving him now!) and a couple BTA in m tank. I only have a couple clowns in there right now (more fish in QT) but I'm seriously wondering if I should get some of these out before other fish more susceptible to whatever the anemones are doing when stressed go into the tank. Especially the magnifica...

jds

[sonofgaladriel]

You are indeed a very brace man! Thank you for sharing your anemone knowledge with us. I'm a relative anemone newbie and I really enjoy and learn alot from your experiences.
I hope both halves of this anemone do well!

[phender]

Originally posted by BonsaiNut
Phil; I know you mention it here and there in this thread, but I think you should point out that you fragged you S. mertensii - NOT an S. haddoni or S. gigantea. In your post title you say "fragged my carpet" and I'm not sure everyone knows there are several different carpet anemones out there...

Thank you for pointing that out. Here I am trying to get people to realize that different carpets have different needs in some of my other posts and then I am guilty of the same thing.

For the followers who don't know the difference,
There is not a lot of data on captive Merten's carpets. I happen to be lucky enough to have two. My large one was ~14" across when I got it 3 years ago. Before I cut it, it had grown to ~24". It has been one of the least demanding anemones I have ever had. My smaller Merten's was about 5" across when I got it about 2 years ago and started to grow, but has actually shrunk a little since I upgraded the lights from 4-65 watt PC to 2- 150 watt DE MH + 2 - 28 watt PC actinics. It is not in the same tank as the large anemone.

The three species of clownfish host carpet anemones all have very different requirements and live in very different habits on and around coral reefs. To assume that what is good for one species will be good for the others will usually result in a dead anemone.

[phender]

Originally posted by bureau13
Not that it has anything to do with the REAL point of the thread (anemone fragging) but the massive fish death now has me officially scared to death. I have a haddoni, a magnifica (up on the glass, but I'm not moving him now!) and a couple BTA in m tank. I only have a couple clowns in there right now (more fish in QT) but I'm seriously wondering if I should get some of these out before other fish more susceptible to whatever the anemones are doing when stressed go into the tank. Especially the magnifica...

jds

I can't tell you about the magnifica, but I can tell you that I had disturbed the Merten's before and it had produced slime before and nothing ever happened. I had to pull him off rocks several times as he moved too close to one thing or another. The sump would get low and the pump would make bubbles. Both would cause the anemone to make slime. However, you have no idea the magnitude and the viscosity of the slime produced by taking the anemone out of the water. I don't know if that was the key for the people who lost fish to the their magnificas, but I think it was for me

[Anthony Calfo]

kudos to you Phil! Regrets for the precious lost fishes aside, its a great thing you've done to make this thread and take the time to post and repost/answer.

Its not enough for the commercial coral and anemone farmers to tell folks they chance meet "yeah... just cut the in half" Most of these such folks are too busy (or not interested) in heavy message board activity.

And the few other nerds like myself that do post or preach anemone propagation have our work cut out for us with (naturally) skeptics

But its folks like you Phil and others that will take the time to detail the application that will make the difference!

Perhaps more than any other cnidarian species collected for the hobby, anemones at large dearly(!) need our aquaculture and conservation efforts. Poor to dismal (import) shipping and (community aquarium) survivability aside... just the very sustainability (rates of recovery and natural fucundity) in the wild is pitiful. Truly pitiful. Anemones are one fo the very few areas that I have to admit the hobby is making a negative impact on the reef

But successful domestic aquaculture (starting with basement farmers and other cottage industry growers) can make that concern and others (shorter shipping... improved survivability, etc) go away nicely!


I can't thank you enough for sharing this my friend.

And to all/others... there is no physiological reason why you cannot divide this cnidarian (anemone) but you can cut others as you know (corallimorphs, octocorals, etc).

I (and many others) have successfully cut every anemone known in the trade (though in my case excluding Heteractis magnifica... because I don't think it should be collected or used in the hobby at all... and must practice what I preach).

Anemone prop candidates require the same conditions as propping corals... conditioning for months in advance (heavy feeding, no stress... never propagate in the tank or with newly moved specimens)... use water baths to purge mucus and exudates after slicing... and then good water quality of course to improve healing.

So Phil... whadya say, buddy? another 12 weeks (good feeding) and make 4 anemones? Please?

Kudos again, my friend.

[ezhoops]

Of course Anthony makes great points here and congrats to Phil for having the guts to actually do it. I just fear that now that Anthony has given everyone permission that we will see a whole lot of Anenome propagation by newbie's or people trying to make a quick $, hopefully not. As he mentioned it takes time to prepare these anenomes and caution and proper care afterwards. Hopefully things will work out and we can all learn something new.
best of luck

[MDP]

Ezhoops.

Good point, but one thing that will help is that it takes an experienced reefkeeper (or very very dilligent newbie) to even keep these things alive for any length of time. Of course that will change as we start seeing captive prop anemones in greater numbers

If people start anemone "chop shops", they will learn very quickly that this is not profitable when they are faced with tanks of decomposing anemone parts.


I think we all owe Anthony a big thank you for this one (amongst many other things he has done for the hobby/hobbiest) and thanks also to Phil for this great thread.

Matt

[keefsama2003]

Congrats Phil so far i have always loved your Single Mertens now you have 2 to love :-P

been a while since i posted and had my 300 up and running for about
6 months now with nothing but a few fish in it in search of the prized mertens.

but keep the pics coming they are looking like my haddoni i had when it decided to move between 2 rocks and split itself. they are looking very promising. and ill keep my fingers crossed

[delphinus]

Wow, coming in a bit late (as usual). Interesting timing however as the thought had occured to me to consider fragging my oldest gigantea as it has reached a point where it is getting a bit big to house comfortably in my tank.

However since I house fish in there, I'd have been hesitant (and now, would never even consider it until such time I could isolate the anemone). I am one of the people who post about "massive fish losses" to magnifica, and in general I am just a bit mistrusting of disturbing any large anemone.

I understand Calfo's motivations to encourage this activity, but I think that there isn't enough emphasis on isolating these anemones. Cutting anemones in a typical garden reef with other cherished inhabitants is just asking for trouble IMO (and sorry Phil if I'm peeing on your heartache here for your recent losses.. I'm very sorry to hear about your fish). I'm directing these comments to the general populace who may want to run out and be the next carpet propagator: Remember that most fish (among whatever else we put in our captive reefs) were collected from the wild, thus are deserving of at least living their life out as best as possible, and not losing their lives to something preventable as an anemone incident.

On the one hand, I don't want to contribute to mass paranoia about anemone keeping, but on the other hand, I do think that we tend to get complacent towards keeping anemones in our captive reefs. It needs to be a very carefully measured choice!

Bottom line, I think we do need to see more captive prop methods attempted out there, .. just not at the cost of losing other animals.

Very eye opening thread Phil. Thanks for posting this information for us all to learn something.

[keefsama2003]

Anthony / Phil / anyone else

is there a way to check the water or is there some kind of test we can do to check for anything in the water that may come from the anemone that can cause significant fish losses? i mean if we can say its the nemocysts that come off with the slime when we do this can we formulate some kind of trap to catch them? not saying we should all go out and try this but for those in the same situation.

[Anthony Calfo]

FWIW... most anything I have ever written about anemones has been to keep them in species tanks only and without exception. Its one fo the few things I am rather miltitant about. Dating back to my oldest (and repetitive ad nauseum ) advice on WWM... I dread seeing aquarists mixing anemones with corals.

For most species, this is quite unnatural and also a recipe for (eventual) disaster. You do not see most such anemones on the reef anywhere near corals. And the keeping of sessile stinging animals with motile ones is just not good sense.

The unnatural concentrations of cnidarians (coral garden hodge-podge mixes) in an aquarium (and subsequent accumulating noxious elements/exudates) is an invitation for the motile amemones to drift/move away from the comptetition/sensations. Hence the many frequent problems we read about with anemones and corals burning/dying, overflow and pumps intakes and other disasters

I also have never recommended anything less than conditioning well in advance and propping outside of the aquarium (water paths/purging... ozone use in the aquarium, etc)

The problem is that some aquarists will read only what they want to read, or hear only what they want to hear... and that's when you see "failures" like new anemones fragged in mixed community tanks and all heck breakling loose, et cetera.

Coral and anemone farming is so simple in so many ways... but strict. Its good animal husbandry. Issues of crowded stressed animals only lead to hardship indeed.

But in the hands of good aquarists following fundamental rules of animal husbandry, we can easily relieve our dependence on wild anemones.

As for anemone propagation not being profitable... good heaven's! Quite the contrary. It is staggeringly profitable and productive (far better than most sps corals in fact). On the low end... $5K per year out of a 100 gall feed trough.

Do see theimac.org DVD lecture or the MACNA one for this year (a few weeks away). Its spelled out in my presentation. These orgs make DVDs and sell them fairly cheap. The speakers don't make a penny on it... please support these conferences by DVD sales if you cannot attend the events. A lot of quite good info across the board (clubs often buy a set of these such DVDs to use for backups at meetings)

kindly, Anth-

[Anthony Calfo]

as per above,keefsama2003, my friend... propagation of corals and anemones in general needs to be done in species specific tanks. Its a matter of displaying versus farming and the twixt shall not mix

["Umm, fish?"]

And it sounds like it might be best to keep anemones in individual hospital tanks after propagation for quite a while, too.

[dantodd]

Anthony, I think MDPs point was not that farming anemones is not profitable but rather that setting up a "chop shop" with poor husbandry will result in many dead animals and will thus not be profitable. (i.e. only those who take good care of tehir animal charges will make money.)

How many generations removed from the reef do you need before you'll be willing to keep a magnifica?

I am a huge proponent of propogating anemones like we do most corals and look forward to a day when our hobby is not taking anemones out of the seas faster than they can be easily replenished by nature.