My magnifica

[twiggy]

Thought I would give this lovely species of nem a try and would post a thread on the progress as it goes. I purchased it from LA January 19th 2011 :becky: Drip acclimated it for around 5 hours in a 5 gallon bucket with a koralia nano in it and a little "shield" so it wouldn't get hurt. It was the size of my palm and deflated when arrived and while acclimating. I assumed it was just unhappy with the trip and the small bag it was in. After the acclimation I plopped it in the tank and converted the shield into a little cage just in case the flow in my tank was too much for the nem to grab onto something.

Fed the fish, turned out the lights and headed for bed. The next morning I woke up and took a look to see how it was doing. Well it filled the cage up and I was surprised at how big it had gotten. Snapped a couple of pics without the lights then a couple with. When the lights were off and it was just my little LED light shinning in, it looked to have some healthy colored tentacles, but when I turned the lights on, it looked pretty bleached. It looked like it faded a little more the next couple of days, but now is starting to get a yellow/green tint to them. I've only been feeding it a squirt or two of food when I feed the fish in the morning and evening. The pics I've posted are the next morning after acclimation. I'll try and take some pics tomorrow of what it looks like and where it's decided to move to. Anyone else keeping these? Any suggestions on how to better feed it would be appreciated. Thanks for reading and taking a look!

 

[2Sunny]

Honestly the best looking specimen I have ever seen!

O.K. so here's my questions, and if you have a tank thread somewhere I'd be happy to go read up there about your setup.

Has it eaten anything yet for sure?
Do you have clown fish yet?
When exactly did you get this guy?
What lighting do you have?
Do you have any full tank shots?
Do you have any flow alternation/wavemaker?
How do you measure salinity and what salinity do you try to keep?
What temperature do you keep?
Do you run carbon?
How often do you do water changes?

Where did you get this guy?

O.K. I'll stop there for now . . . honestly I'm excited for you and hope this guy does well. Maybe even you can get it to spilt in the not too distant future as it's already so big!


Joe

 

[Krish]

Really nice specimen!!! Good luck with him!!

 

[2Sunny]

Ooops. Obviously disregard the questions on where an when you got it . . . I should have read the first post first. Typical impetuous guy behavior : )

 

[2Sunny]

Twiggy where r u?

 

[NC2WA]

2Sunny,

the location says Missouri (MO)

 

[Inconservatory]

I, too, would like to track the progress of your success.

 

[twiggy]

Sorry everyone, busy weekend for me with my gf and our two years of togetherness. I was forbidden from the web on Saturday lol. Friday I got into a fender bender and had a busy day on the phone and running errands around. Sunday I had to get back on track with everything after being absent the day before. Today I had to go to work and deal with everyone freaking out about the supposed ice/snow storm we're going to maybe get. I took some pics of it, but haven't had the time to upload and edit. I would've this morning before work, but my internet went down.




Has it eaten anything yet for sure? - Yes, I fed it a pistol shrimp that wasn't going to make it in my mantis tank as it was already being picked on by a crab, so I picked the pistol arm off just in case it had a final moment and threw it into the tentacles. It took a little while, but I saw it ingest it. As far as everything else I've been feeding it, in the beginning, it would latch onto the food and most would drift away after a while from the current, but I would try and make sure to squeeze some food by the tentacles closer to the mouth so it could get to it quicker. Yesterday and today it is sticking very well and closes up a lot quicker on the food.

Do you have clown fish yet? - Yes, I have two occys, but they so far prefer the green hairy mushrooms I have at the bottom of the tank. I thought about getting a wild pair of skunks to host it when I get the 225 up and running if my clowns don't decide to take it.


When exactly did you get this guy? - You already corrected yourself, but I'll put it anyways lol. LiveAquaria


What lighting do you have? - I have two 17.5" Ecoxotic panorama LED fixtures over my 65g tank. I put the anemone up top on a recently purchased flat LR, but has since relocated itself to the middle and down the rock wall. Go figure.


Do you have any full tank shots? - Yes, I'll get them up soon with some update pics. I promise


Do you have any flow alternation/wavemaker? - No, I will with the 225, so hopefully this little accident of mine won't rob me on insurance increase. Really wishing it was setup already so I can give my corals and fish room to breath.


How do you measure salinity and what salinity do you try to keep? - I measure it with a refractometer and keep it at 1.026, which drops daily because of evaporation loss in the tank, but not too much. I have to dump a gallon of freshwater everyday to keep it steady.


What temperature do you keep? - I liked to keep it around 78, but since my old heater went out, the new one I could afford isn't quite as easy to regulate so it stays at a steady 79-80 range.


Do you run carbon? - Yes, I change it maybe every three months or so. I only put it in some pantyhose and throw it in the sump. I have three bags and change one or two out at a time.


How often do you do water changes? - I was changing 15g every week, but since tearing down one tank I do 20, and sometimes skip a wc on my qt and do a 25g wc a week. I don't run a skimmer so my weekly water changes are very crucial to the well being of my acros and fish.

 

[twiggy]

Here's some pics folks

The FTS, right now I feel like it's just a frag tank with a bunch of LR. It's been a little hectic the past month or so.

Pics of the nem



actinics

worried about this little guy accidentally running into it

 

[2Sunny]

Hey Twiggy,
Sorry to hear about your fender bender. I was in one too last week. I felt bad 'cuz it was a 16 yr old kid and he simply backed into me in a parking lot . . . ah well at least no one was hurt (I hope?!?)

Anyways, my primary concern for you and your new anemone are the lights. LEDs are not a broad spectrum light and can have intense light focused in a narrow spectrum that doesn't register on a meter, and is enough to "photoinhibit" corals. I am NOT a scientist or an LED specialist or a marine biologist, but my gut tells me that a H. Mag anemone will not live under LEDs without a supplement of metal halide or T5 because there will be too much white spectrum and not enough 420 or 600ish nm spectrum. Moving down your rock work is the exact opposite of what my anemone did initially. Also (and this is anecdotal not scientific as well) I had two reefing friends locally try H. Mags both of which did not make it and both of which started by moving lower in the tank and ultimately "hiding" in a crevice at the bottom.

In addition I notice the green leather coral in your tank, and I feel quite strongly that leather corals do NOT mix with anemones or SPS and would strongly urge you to take that out. I have no studies to prove that, but the number of times I have given that advice and seen positive results in local tanks makes me a strong believer that leather corals are very chemically aggressive.

Having said all that I want to add that I am NOT a marine biologist and only a hobbyist so I would recommend taking in a few more opinions before making any changes, and quite honestly if you can keep this guy happy under LEDs for a year or so that would be spectacular and very strong proof which would force me to make the switch as well. There's nothing I would like more than to lower my electric bill by switching to LEDs!

Here's a summary of my thoughts:

1) Consider raising the LEDs an inch or two and trying to add two strips of retrofit T5
2) Keep doing what you're doing and feed the anemone as much as it will eat.
3) Try to keep the temperature at 80+.
4) Keep doing what you're doing on the salinity and let it sit 1.026 to 1.027
5) Remove the leather coral.


I wouldn't worry about fish bumping into the 'nem. Other than the Lion Fish that tried to eat the clowns at the Greenwich Aquaria, I have never seen an H. Mag capture a healthy fish.


Of course no matter what you do, I hope you continue to update us on a weekly basis, so we can all learn from your experience. I'm certain not many folks have tried to keep an H. Mag under LEDs yet so you are definitely breaking new ground here with your photos.

Have you always had LED lighting? If not what did you use before and do you still own it?


Your Reefin' Bud,

Joe


P.S. Awesome pictures!

 

[2Sunny]

oops . . . double post . . .

 

[twiggy]

So sorry for not keeping up weekly here. Been a loong couple of months for me, but My life seems to be calming down at the moment. Well the nem kept wanting to move down so I moved it up to the top, after that, it started to move again so this time I decided to let it go and see what happens. It traveled down, then to the side of my tank pm the rockwork right below the powerhead and stayed there for about a week. Then it decided to move to the back of the rockwork and stayed there for a week. Then the next week it decided to move onto the overflow box. When I saw it started to do this I got nervous a little. When I came home from work that night it was all the way at the top of the overflow in the back corner right underneath the loc line. All went well that night. In the morning when my girlfriend got up to take a shower at 4 am all was well, but around 4:30-5 am I heard this horrible sucking clog noise and I sprung out of bed and ran over to see what was wrong! I thought maybe something was leaking, but then I noticed my nem wasn't there anymore! I covered up the drain holes to create a vacuum force and the noise stopped, I then quickly unplugged my pump and dropped down to my knees just knowing I was going to find bits and pieces of my nem. The only thing that was wrong with it was it was just shrivled up, not even a tear or a missing tentacle! I was so relieved but so nervous as to what would happen next. So I put it back up top and put the little contraption I made back over it while I went to work for the day. When I came home it was full grown again and creeping out of the box by sliding underneath it, so I took the contraption out and let it do what it wanted to. It moved to the middle of my tank and stayed there for another week. The next week it started crawling up the front of the overflow box, it stopped midway on top of a little gsp patch and stayed there for another week. Then it proceeded to move to the other side of the overflow box on the right. I was getting very nervous again and having flash backs of that one morning with horrible gurgling sounds. Needless to say I didn't sleep that great the next week. Every little gurgle from the drain made me nervous and I shined a flash light over just to make sure the nem was still there. It's finally settled down and stayed at the top in that corner of the overflow box and actually is out of the water a little, but still wet as it can't lift out since it has no solid structure. I feed it a couple of krill twice a week now. The top tentacles have gained a lot of color and look purple/brown and the rest of the tentacles are starting to look speckled with zooanthellae growth. I hope it doesn't decide to move again for a long while. To answer your question about the lights before these, I had a fixture with a 250w MH and 4 pc actinics. The fixture was used so I have no idea how old the bulbs actually were and I used that fixture for the first year. I did tale out all the leathers in the tank as I want this anemone to stand a good chance of thriving. I would love to show you guys some pics, but my computer is on the fritz and I'm not sure when I can fix it. This is taking a long time to type out on my iPhone lol. I'll try and keep everyone up to date weekly now.

 

[twiggy]

Well, it's moved again lol. When I did a water change last week, I guess it couldn't hold on with it's dead weight this time so it fell. It crawled onto my rocks and made it's way to the right side glass. It looked like it was gonna get sucked into my powerhead, so I moved it to the rear until the anemone stopped moving. Then it started heading towards the rear where I moved the powerhead so I moved it back to it's original spot. It's stayed there and this morning it looked like it was heading back to its position over by the overflow box so we'll see where it's at when I get home tonight. On a side note I think it's getting a lot healthier. I went to pick up a fallen coral this morning and I guess my elbow grazed the tentacles because all of a sudden my elbow was on fire. I thought I just might have some cuts that I didn't see and the saltwater was burning it. When I took a shower a few minutes later I washed my arm to make it stop, as it usually does when I get saltwater in a cut, but this tine it didn't. My elbow had some redness in splotches where the tentacles hit. It went away now, but you can still see little red dots where they clung on. When I first got it, I could hold it and not feel a thing. Now I've learned my lesson and I have to watch where my arms are in the tank when I'm messing with things. Color looks alot better this week too. Hopefully in another few weeks it'll be completely colored up instead of a beige color. The few tentacles that are pretty colored up look purple/green. I'm excited to see if it'll be as beautiful as yours Joe!

 

[Maxx]

Twiggy, its getting healthier if its stinging like that. I have two H.magnifica's...a brown based that I've had for 5 years now, and a purple based one with purple tips that I've had for 6 months now. Havent been stung by the purple based one, but the brown bassed one has gotten me several times. The worst was on the inner forearm...I had a welt and burn marks there for a month.

Someday when we've both got time, we need to get together since your in DeSoto. I'm in Fenton so we're not that far apart. Do you make it to any of the SLASH pizza nights? I can only make it to them if the timing is just right....but I do try and go to them.

Nick

 

[twiggy]

I'm in Fenton all the time. I'm actually going to the pizza night next week on the 27th I believe. I've only made a few pizza nights as I usually have to work into the evening and have to be back to work the next morning sp if I don't know three weeks in advance when it is I usually can't make em. I'm glad I didn't get stung like you did! Probably in time though, I'm always getting something from my tank lol. The color is starting to show nicely under actinics now. Every night it looks more and more colored up. I'm thinking the tentacles will be purple like the base from what I can see on the few that started coloring up first. We'll see, kinda early to say for sure. Shoot me a pm nick if you ever want to meet up sometime.

 

[twiggy]

Finally got my computer fixed. Here's some pics at how my mag has came along