Aquarium-ists?

[Raul]

That's extremely crowded, but I bet it looked pretty cool.

Did your Sebae anemones ever brown up? A white, gray, or yellow anemone is severely bleached. I had a Sebae for 4 years and it started out stark white with purple tips, but eventually turned an iridescent, coffee-with-cream brown and grew to 20" before I sold it.

How big were the Flame Angel and Anthias after two years? Was the Flame aggressive and territorial?

Never had bleaching problems with sebae anemones, on of the things I like about sebaes is that they don 't wander around the tank like long tentacles do ( reason why the Elegance coral ate one of them ). Anthias didn 't grow much, you practically purchase them full grown size, they are beautiful but can be very picky with what they eat, at first the only thing they ate was brine shrimp, once you establish the feeding pattern and they get used to be fed live foods you can begin by training them to eat frozen foods and even flake foods ( by dropping them near the powerhead output ). Flame angels aren 't agreesive towards other fish except for other species of dwarf angel fish ( coral beauty, bicolor, potter 's ) and can be a vey important part of keeping the tank free of filamentous algae that surgeons ( with the exception of yellow eye and chevron ) don 't eat, turbo snails complete the job of keeping the tank green/brown algae free. The only species I don 't recomend for keeping are those orchid shrimps, yeah they are beautiful but they are specialized feeders, they only eat starfish and even though there are cheap starfish you can feed them ( chocolate chip ) now that I look back and see it with other eyes it 's not very ecofriendly feeding them even cheap starfish, I have to admit the behavior is fascinating, starfish wander a lot but as soon as you drop the starfish in the tank the orchid shrimp race to it, then they walk on it and beleive it or not, the starfish doesn 't move at all and doesn 't move anymore, the shrmp pick on it until they eat it completely ( something that takes several days ), it 's like the shrimp anesthesize the starfish.

[CWB]

Best job I ever had was working for the local Tropical Fish store when I was a kid.had aquariums all my life but never had the luxury of owning a saltwater tank though. Wish I could talk the wife into it.

Beats the heck out of watching T.V.

[BassThumb]

That's extremely crowded, but I bet it looked pretty cool.

Did your Sebae anemones ever brown up? A white, gray, or yellow anemone is severely bleached. I had a Sebae for 4 years and it started out stark white with purple tips, but eventually turned an iridescent, coffee-with-cream brown and grew to 20" before I sold it.

How big were the Flame Angel and Anthias after two years? Was the Flame aggressive and territorial?

Never had bleaching problems with sebae anemones, on of the things I like about sebaes is that they don 't wander around the tank like long tentacles do ( reason why the Elegance coral ate one of them ). Anthias didn 't grow much, you practically purchase them full grown size, they are beautiful but can be very picky with what they eat, at first the only thing they ate was brine shrimp, once you establish the feeding pattern and they get used to be fed live foods you can begin by training them to eat frozen foods and even flake foods ( by dropping them near the powerhead output ). Flame angels aren 't agreesive towards other fish except for other species of dwarf angel fish ( coral beauty, bicolor, potter 's ) and can be a vey important part of keeping the tank free of filamentous algae that surgeons ( with the exception of yellow eye and chevron ) don 't eat, turbo snails complete the job of keeping the tank green/brown algae free. The only species I don 't recomend for keeping are those orchid shrimps, yeah they are beautiful but they are specialized feeders, they only eat starfish and even though there are cheap starfish you can feed them ( chocolate chip ) now that I look back and see it with other eyes it 's not very ecofriendly feeding them even cheap starfish, I have to admit the behavior is fascinating, starfish wander a lot but as soon as you drop the starfish in the tank the orchid shrimp race to it, then they walk on it and beleive it or not, the starfish doesn 't move at all and doesn 't move anymore, the shrmp pick on it until they eat it completely ( something that takes several days ), it 's like the shrimp anesthesize the starfish.

You're right about the Sebaes not moving. Once they find a spot they like, they own it. Sebaes are my favorite anemones for SPS tanks because of that, even though they're not spectacular looking like a nice Carpet anemone or RBTA. Once they settle down, you can build the corals in your tank around them without worrying about the anemone stinging them. I much prefer the look of the Rose BTA, but I lost count of the hard corals that they stung and killed after they moved overnight.

That's a good job to get those Anthias to eat flake food. I was never able to get any of mine to eat dry foods. They're my favorite fish to watch, but they're so finicky with what they eat! Mine lived off the Cyclops Eeze that was in the home made frozen slurry that I fed the filter feeding corals 2x a day.

How is the Coral trade down in Mexico? Can you get your hands on the bright colored Acanthastrea Lordhowensis or Ricordia Yuma for a decent price? I'm not looking to buy, I'm just curious. I used to propagate them for sale. They can go for $50-100 bucks a polyp around here or online, if they're really bright colored.

[Raul]

How is the Coral trade down in Mexico? Can you get your hands on the bright colored Acanthastrea Lordhowensis or Ricordia Yuma for a decent price? I'm not looking to buy, I'm just curious. I used to propagate them for sale. They can go for $50-100 bucks a polyp around here or online, if they're really bright colored.

I don 't know much about coral availability for other hobbysts, I assume it 's very low and not because they are not there, it 's because how the supply system works down here, kid you not, there are only a few saltwater fish/invertebrate importers, all the fish and invertebrates go through their hands and they are not likely to invest in animals that are not going to sell right away, their business is mainly fish and as for invertebrates they had the common stuff ( anemones, some shrimp n 'stuff like that ) I had a priviledged position because I not only sold retail but wholesale and I bought  from the most important freshwater fish importer in Mexico, he also worked with saltwater but he had kinda like a trade system with the saltwater guys, he "sold" them freshwater, they sold him saltwater, so I placed my order with him and he provided me with what I wanted on a system based that whatever I ordered I had to pay no matter if it arrived alive or dead, that 's how I got my corals. I got elegance corals for 30-40 dollars, bubble corals for 10-15 and such ( less than 1/3 of the retail price ). Besides the saltwater guys got most of their fish from one company ( All Seas ) which had the best prices, they could get from another company ( Quality Marine ) but normally they didn 't because the animals were much more expensive ( man Quality Marine did have very nice animals ). Aquarim stores here are more into the saltwater fish trade than in the invertebrate trade and it 's simple to understand, invertebrates are much more delicate, die easily and have more requirements than fish, so for the regular aquarium store invertebrates represent a larger investment.

[BassThumb]

Aquarim stores here are more into the saltwater fish trade than in the invertebrate trade and it 's simple to understand, invertebrates are much more delicate, die easily and have more requirements than fish, so for the regular aquarium store invertebrates represent a larger investment.

I think it's like that everywhere.  Most aquarium stores have a hard enough time keeping their doors open nowadays.  Fish are a much better investment, although the further south you go, the easier it would be to successfully propagate corals because it allows for cost-saving greenhouse operations with little supplemental lighting.