j-cal
Member
I'd agree with that about anemones. As a side note, there is a typically VERY good whole saler that supplies a LFS in my area that I've had friends try anemones from. NONE have lived more than 2 weeks. I've had 3 people try them from my whole saler at my LFS. Al are at least 2 months and going strong. mines about 9 months. Is this success....hardly, but I am truly of the opinion that conditions that wholesalers have anemones in directly relates to success in captivity. IME the smaller wholesalers that (I'm assuming here) get less numbers of individual anemones have anemones that do better. Do they give better care or coincidence? I'm really not sure. On the flip side, I have gotten anemones that die within days from small wholesalers (but far fewer numbers). It seems to me as well that there is a 2-3 week critical period where one finds out the true health of the animal. They seem either deteriorate completely within this time or survive. Typically if my store has one for this time, the costumer has little or no problem so long as they maintain good water chemistry. I'll reiterate that I most definitely think that this does not mean its successful, but at the same time I think that importation conditions are really the critical issue with anemones. I'd assume that finding a good importer/wholesaler and then putting an anemone in conditions that are acceptable/good would result in success in the long term. With regards to the stats above, I'm curious how many deaths after long term care (>1 year) are a result of "natural" deterioration versus some other problem in the tank like power outages, PH intake suckage etc etc