Getting Anemone tomorrow AM, how do I acclimate?

[daveNandi]

I have heard everything from 1.5 to 2 hours drip acclimating to 15 minutes of floating the bag. Anyone have experience?

 

[Doan]

First off make sure you have a very established tank.. (1 year) yeah it sucks and is a long time but really that is the only way it will have a chance. Also make sure you have good lighting etc... But if all that is in check my theory is you can never over acclimate.. I always get a bottle of wine with my new tankmates and drip for about 2 hrs ... All the while driking wine and checking here to make sure I didn't miss anything about care in my inital research.. Gotta admit acclimating is one of my favorite parts of this hobby ... mabye it's the wine..

Doan

 

[daveNandi]

Well, becauseof the storm I had a lot of FedEx troubles, but after 2 trips to the local office and a couple of 800 calls I have my rose BTA. I did a half hour drip, followed by a ten minute float, followed by pouring off most of the water in the bag, followed by a really fast drip. He's in the tank and seems fine.

I'll post pictures on my website soon.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[HoopsGuru]

It really depended on what your salinity, PH, temperature, etc. was in contrast to the shipping water from the retailer. If they were greatly different, one should acclimate them longer. Hopefully in your case the waters were comparable as 30 minutes is not a very long acclimation.

 

[smokiums]

I acclimated my sebae for just over two hours. However, by morning he had moved into one of the caves. He seems ok. I hand feed some krill yesterday and he took them with no problem. I really wish he'd move out of there.

Any ideas or is this normal?

 

[daveNandi]

Our BTA still seems to be doing well. He too ate krill, though one of the two pieces I gave him was stollen by a cleaner shrimp (who was then harassed by the orchid dottyback until he dropped in and our blue spotted jawfish took it into his hole). The cleaner shrimp walked right into the center of the anemone to get the krill.

The acclimation time was closer to an hour than to 1/2 an hour if you add the float and the two drip times. We also had a serial dillution in there, because we poured off some of the water between the two drips. On the first drip I started it slow and ramped up the speed over time, which seems to work really well.

The BTA is not in a great spot from our perspective, but we hope he'll move to a better spot once he gets more used to our tank.

 

[HoopsGuru]

Glad to hear. Keep in mind though that anemones may take in food only to reject it hours later by spitting it back out. I thought my BTA loved scallops like the other food, but noticed one day after it spit it back out and the hermits ate it. I was able to replicate this several times. I had the most favorable results with Selcon soaked silversides, shrimp was also a favorite. It may very well love the krill, but don't assume that since it takes it in it is the end of the story.