Saturday, April 1, 2017

Baby Rock Flower Anemones!!

So as I've said in past posts, I want to breed Rock Flower anemones. Well it seems that that has happened! Over the past month I've found 7 small baby nems throughout the tank, all different sizes. From what I've read of others experiences they will be different colors then the adults. I'm still not sure who the parents are, but I have an idea about the fathers since I've only seen two of them spawn and those are the big red one and the big green one.

Some of these babies are tiny! The latest one I found is about he size of the end of my dropper for my refractometer haha. They all seem to be doing well and I've corralled them in a small dish with rubble and sand to keep them from disappearing. The bigger of the two are big enough to accept a small Omega 1 pellet, but the other 5 I'm still feeding plankton. They aren't showing any real color yet, but I figure it's still early and the two bigger ones with start showing some soon since their pattern is developing.

I was trying to get them to spawn this spring, reading that they normally spawn around the spring solstice (some time around March 20th), but that hasn't happened and I'm not sure if it will. Both of my males seem to be a little stressed for some reason that I cant find. The big red one has it's stomach all puffed out and has been that way for about a month or more. It's still looking good besides that and accepting food. The large green one just keeps standing tall and wont calm down and flatten out like he should be. The only thing I can think of would be the lights, but the other nems I have in the tank all seem fine, nice, flat, and open.

At some point I will do a write up of all my experience with these guys as well as what I've collected from around the net for my reference as well as sharing this collection of information since I've see lots of others interested in getting these gorgeous little guys to breed.