the bubbletip sea anemone or entacmaea quadricolor is an anemone that gets it's common name from the trait that it inflates (using water not air) into the tips of its tentacles giving them a bubbled look.
ALL bubbletip nems fall into the category entacmaea quadricolor from browns, grays, green with pink tips, green with orange tips, and roses. bubbletips are one of the preferred nems to have when you have ocelleris clownfish as it is one of the clowns natural preferred nems to host.
care for them is relatively easy, from my personal experiences. basic things to know when deciding to keep a bubbletip (or any nem) is to have good lighting consisting of either power compacts, T5 high output or metal halide due to the fact that nems get their food in 2 ways, one is making it via zooxanthelle within their tissue and the other is meaty foods such as mysis, silversides, krill, etc.
bubbletips (like other nems) reproduce by splitting making a clone, a few things have been known to promote splitting consisting of stress and frequent feeding.
you should make sure to feed your nem with meaty foods from once every 2 weeks to 3 times a week ( i prefer twice a week if the nem will take it) that is unless of course you cannot get to it because it is behind your rock or in another hard to reach area because the nem is obviously not going to go somewhere in the tank that it cannot get to light.
NEMS like to move, nems do like to move on occasion and it is not always a wanted or desired move as they will sometime get to a spot where they are not visible. they should never be moved from the rock as you could damage their foot or injure them in another way. if your nem moves just leave it alone except to feed it (and if you cannot feed it because of where it is at don't worry about feeding it, it will most likely move again in the future to another spot.
anemones also vary in size from day to day and this is not uncommon as they will fill with water and expel water (NO THEY DO NOT FILL WITH AIR THEY FILL WITH WATER)they prefer a tank free of organic material meaning a good protein skimmer is essential for keeping an anemone.
make sure you maintain trace minerals and elements in the water column either by water changes, adding supplements, or both (which is preferred) and iron supplements are also recommended to help support the zooxanthelle in the tissue of the nem.
they require moderate current in addition to clean water which helps to expel the nems waste and promote the exchange of minerals and trace elements in the nem
here are the general care requirements that MUST be met in order to even consider a bubbletip anemone
lighting: HIGH
current: MODERATE
temperature: 78 to 80 F
ph: 8.2 to 8.4
the following pic is of my green bubbletip anemone the little white round blur on the rock to the left is actually my rose bubbletip and the one hiding in the rock to the left is one i saved from the LFS that i was told it was a green but it looks like a rose which make me think it started to bleach out and under actinics looks like it has a yellow green tint in the white, when the pic was taken it had only been in my tank about an hour and it looked to be about 4 to 6 inches in diameter when fully opened while today it was opened up and it looked more like 8 inches in diameter and by looking at its foot through a hole in the rock it was attached to it appears that my GBTA (if i put it in a tank without any rock or anything else and only had the nem in it) could very well be more like 10 inches in diameter.
one word of caution to potential nem owners (white nems are bleached out and may not be able to make their own food and may require more frequent feeding to not living at all. my rose turned white with pink tips after splitting and is not bleached at all but normal coloration of a rose if you look at online pics.
the rose bubbletip pics are some i got offline to show the differences between inflated and deflated tentacle tips.
10/22/2009, 10:11 pm
. yes the anemone is an animal, however it will eat meaty foods (silversides, krill, mysis, etc) but they also get food from the zooxanthelle. to put it really simple (as it was explained to me LOL) the anemone is an omnivore, the nem eats algae which it makes in its own tissue (which is the reason it needs good lighting) and of course the meaty foods it eats.
