Marine Depot Forums / TEAM Marine Depot / Marine Systems and Husbandry – by Anthony Calfo / Feeding anemones large chunks of food... please dont / Latest Posts

RE: Feeding anemones large chunks of food... please dont

Anthony Calfo — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 11:47:46 GMT

freezing is effective overall for this purpose, though not foolproof.

RE: Feeding anemones large chunks of food... please dont

charlesr1958 — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 08:23:14 GMT

I imagine it would be very effective, there are very few animals on this planet that can survive having their cells pierced by ice crystals. Although there are a few animals that have the ability to prevent such damage and can "come back" from being frozen solid, but thats a whole new topic there...lol

Chuck

RE: Feeding anemones large chunks of food... please dont

MattTVI — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 06:25:47 GMT

Hey Chuck!

I keep my prepared foods frozen as well, but I wonder how effective (affective?) freezing is in regards to killing parasites and worms?

thanks,

Matt

RE: Feeding anemones large chunks of food... please dont

charlesr1958 — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 06:19:55 GMT

I might be paranoid, but I am also in the habit of freezing any fresh seafoods overnight that will be used to feed any fish / coral or invert out of fear of introducing parasites / intestinal worms and such.

Chuck

RE: Feeding anemones large chunks of food... please dont

MattTVI — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 03:51:27 GMT

Anthony,

As always, thanks for the information! I'll begin to feed smaller pieces.

Matt

RE: Feeding anemones large chunks of food... please dont

Anthony Calfo — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 20:43:22 GMT

for the larger species and specimens it is well enough, though not ideal IMO. But this is not a good recipe or habit to recommend to anemone keepers at large. Anemones will regurgitate this ball just like oversized fishes fed or captured.

RE: Feeding anemones large chunks of food... please dont

MattTVI — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 11:10:11 GMT

Anthony,

The food is minced, but I ball it up. If I put it in the water column, it will break apart in the water column. Is this all right?

thanks,

Matt

RE: Feeding anemones large chunks of food... please dont

Anthony Calfo — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 09:45:36 GMT

whatever type of meats used... always remember that it should be like marine zooplankton... amphipod size or smaller (even amphipods are huge as zooplankton goes and anemone food)

think minced or smaller for the meat bits

RE: Feeding anemones large chunks of food... please dont

MattTVI — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 07:18:49 GMT

Anthony,

I have a recipe of the following:

1/2 Tilapia

1/4 Scallop

1/4 Shrimp

I blended this up w/ some Kent ZoeMarine and froze it. I'll thaw it before feeding in some RO/DI water and then squeeze as much "juice" out of it as I can and roll it into a ball w/ some freeze-dried cyclopeeze. The ball is about the size of my pinky nail.

The anemone ate this quickly, but I was suprised to see (i had fed the lysmata ambonensis a pellet to keep it away) the female clown bite at the mouth of the anemone. I had to shoo her away with my hand and once the anemone had completely closed its mouth over the food, she was allowed back in and left the mouth alone. I'm wondering if this is something that simply happens or do i need to (like the shrimp) feed the tank and while everyone's eating, then fed the anemone.

thanks,

Matt

ps - joyce's book came yesterday. imo, the pictures alone make it worth the price, but the information looks great as well (what i've read so far). I wonder if she has plans for a revised edition?

RE: Feeding anemones large chunks of food... please dont

Anthony Calfo — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 17:54:12 GMT

I prefer to feed anemones fresh or fresh-frozen meats of marine origin such as mysid shrimp, pacifica plankton, minced cocktail shrimp, etc

RE: Feeding anemones large chunks of food... please dont

ericmcj31 — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 16:50:27 GMT

What about the Corallife "Invert. Smorgasborg?" I've been target feeding mine with this a while--do you think this is a good choice or not? Thanks

RE: Feeding anemones large chunks of food... please dont

Spracklcat — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 15:45:49 GMT

Eew. Thanks.

Feeding anemones large chunks of food... please dont

Anthony Calfo — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 11:59:13 GMT

In a tragically funny example of my mantra to folks to not feed their anemones unnaturally large chunks of food (whole shrimp, whole fish, etc)... an example:

http://www.sareefkeeping.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3565

They really will regurgitate large meats. Moreover, it's more often done at night, after feedings... leaving the keeper to think their anemone is well fed, but really the anemone starves slowly over time for yacking after each feeding and getting little to no appreciable nutrition via target feeding with big chunks.

For anemones at large, feed zooplankton-like substitutes... especially for the smaller anemone species. Mysids are a fine choice, for example. Feed them in a saltwater slurry to the anemone.