Long Tentacle Anemone

After changing my mind about purchasing a Copper Banded Butterfly fish (who wants to feed a fish live food twice a day?!), I decided to go with an anemone at Vets-Pets. An anemone still requires feeding, but it'll catch food during feeding time and I'll hand feed it once a week or so.

I created plenty of space for this new, purple animal on the right side of my 110 gallon reef aquarium. The LTA (Macrodactyla doreensis) is known to expand to 18" in diameter. I think after reefkeeping for a few years, my tank (and I) would be mature enough to support the anemone. Plus, this is one of the more hardy species of anemones to keep in a reef aquarium.

The clowns were not happy because I moved their egg-bearing mushroom rock to make room for the new anemone. They were swatting at the new arrival with their tails and pouring sand on it after I introduced it to the tank.

Here is the poor anemone trying to adjust after a 1 hour drip-acclimation:

This is the adjusted anemone the next morning. I even added several cups of sand to surround the foot. The clowns don't see it as a threat anymore. I think they may considering using the new real estate containing the purple mansion as an upgrade home for their expanding family.

Here's a flash picture of the anemone. The tentacles are conforming to the corkscrew shape characteristic of the "corkscrew anemone". Now, the trick is to keep this animal comfortable enough to stay in one place. Otherwise, it'll wreak havoc by stinging my other corals to death. How do you keep an animal with no brain happy? Feed it!