And now my 2 cents.
Hi MN1467
I've personally been keeping/raising BTA's for 5 years now, and they can be alot of fun to watch with the clowns living in them.
Forgive me for being blind but did you mention your tank size that you have the 96 watts over? I do notice that you seem to have several tanks. Is the 96 watts total? Please clairify total watts.
What I would check when getting an anemone is of course your water paramiters, paying attention to the calcium and alkalinity as well as pH. Make sure that the anemone, in this case BTA, has rocks to get on so he can look for a good place to put his pedal disc into, and to reach for as much light as he is able to.
With regards to the feeding debate. I'm one that believes that way to many people over feed anemones, or they think that feeding will replace the lighting issue if the lighting doesn't measure up, you would be suprised how many think that way. To many folks just don't understand that its the zooxanthellae that lives in the anemone that needs this light.
Zooxanthellae are a very special type of marine plant. The zooxanthellae are single celled algae which live inside the translucent fleshy tissue of many marine animals including types of giant clams, nudibranchs and even jellyfish, however they play their most important role when living within coral polyps an anemones. Like all other plants zooxanthellae need sunlight in order to photosynthesise and grow. Photosynthesis produces sugars essential for the plants to grow, however with the zooxanthellae enough sugar is produced to allow some to be shared with their hosts. In return the host will assist the growth of the zooxanthellae by passing on some of its dissolved organic waste. The host animal cannot usually survive if the zooxanthellae are not present.
The host animals do not have any zooxanthellae in their larval forms and therefore must acquire them from the water column. The juvenile host filters the zooxanthellae from the seawater along with its food and once in the stomach of the host the zooxanthellae is passed into the surface flesh.
It is for this reason that some of us will constantly like a broken record say that the lighting is so vastly important, much more so than direct feeding. This is why we always ask for total watts, what type, what spectrum, age of lights, tank size, depth of tank, photo periods and on and on when we don't know all the variables. And please forgive us as some of us skim posts instead of reading word per word, me included.
Sure I think anemones should be fed, just not as often as coutless posts have indicated that many folks do. I've gone 2 months without feeding my BTA's, but if I had a carpet anemone than I'd be feeding it every week because its needs are different than a BTA.
As to the mixing of species of clownfish, from experience I can tell you that I'll never do that again. But I'll let you be the judge of that one in time. Personally I'd only keep two of a kind in even my 90 gallon, and I just happen to have two false percs that mate about every two weeks with a new clutch of babies. They simply would not tolerate another clownfish in the tank, let alone my own hand, LOL..
Clowns are really not bringing food to an anemone, they are simply greedy little buggers that are trying to hid food for themselfs later, but are inavertantly feeding the anemone in that way as well as with their own waste material later on.
If you have any other questions I'd be happy to help, and I look forward to your sharing your pics of the new anemone.
Thomas
