Anemone Splitting 3 Ways?

[Ram_Puppy]

Hey All,

As you know my Rose Bubble Tip was heat stressed a while back and bleached it's algae, it has been slowly coloring back up and has a green tinge to it with hot pink tips.

Well, last night my timer failed to shut off my lights (going to go get a digital one from lowes today) and the temp went up to 87, and the lights were on almost 20 hours. EEk.

When I woke up, my anemone had already split off one section of itself, and appears to be going for at least one more split. It also started to eat a shrimp yesterday and then spit it out.. not sure if that has anything to do with it. Anyhow, I am guessing this split is in response to stress, and will probably doom all three remaining portions of the anemone. I am also concerned that the clowns are to big to host in the individual anemones now.

I have turned off the lights and put a frozen water bottle in to help cool the tank from the long lighting cycle. here are some pics:

Oh, and the greening back up doesn't show up in the picture, it's washed out by the flash. I once had high hopes of this anemone recovering, but now, I doubt that will ever happen, not that I won' try.

[Jenn]

Sorry I have no advice, but I sure do hope all 3 recover. The clown is probably wondering, "what the.......???"

[JimD]

People underestimate the hardiness of BTA's, as long as the water quality is up to par and sufficiant lighting is supplied, I see no reason why these particular anemones shouldnt make a full recovey in time. The only problem I can see is the clown bwing overly aggresive and hindering its ability to heal properly. Id give them a week or two to heal before attemptoing to feed, and then only small pieces of silversides.
Good luck!

[Ram_Puppy]

Thanks Jim.

Lighting is 4 power compact bulbs and it's directly under a 250 watt Ushio metal halide, so I hope that is ok, my paramaters are testing good, alkalinity is a little low, I am bringing it up slowly.

[Ram_Puppy]

oh, and considering I know this was a one time event that bleached the anemone (in a different tank) and that the lights won't be malfunctioning again (just got a new timer) do you guys think it might be prudent to but a larger BTA to lure the clows away from these small ones and into one that is more appropriately sized?

[JimD]

Anything you can do to keep the clown from overly disturbing it would be appreciated by the anemone Im sure.

[ratboy]

I had something similar happen to my BTA about 2 years ago. The parent anenome was fine then one day it started splitting like mad (only thing that reacted so still dont know cause). It split 3-4 times and I ended up with 5 mini BTA's -all slightly bleached. None of them exhibited a strong feeding response but continue to live in my tank. I still see 3 of them regularly wandering around the tank but they never recovered their color or size. I got a clone from my original BTA and it has since split several times (twice in the last month - but all colored and near full size). I always hoped the mini BTA's would aquire some zooanthelle from the healthy BTA but no luck so far.

[Ram_Puppy]

thanks Ratboy, that is good to know... I PM'ed Richard and asked him to let me know when he gets his next RBTA in.