Tank-Breed Long Tentacles

[keddre]

I was wondering why this has never been done, while -in theory- this should be an easy process that I may try.

I imagine that all you would have to do is get (maybe three) lta's so that you get one of each sex and mimic weather changing so that they will go sexual.
Do a few months of Winter with "colder" water and less food, then mimic summer time (when they would breed) with warmer water and and increase of supplemental feeding

I would imagine this is best done in a tank like mine where it has become established and is used to running without a skimmer so that the sperm/eggs/larva don't get sucked up

Thoughts or maybe something that I'm missing? If anything, this would give my flame scallop and all we can eat buffet

 

[Gweeds1980]

I was wondering why this has never been done, while -in theory- this should be an easy process that I may try.

I imagine that all you would have to do is get (maybe three) lta's so that you get one of each sex and mimic weather changing so that they will go sexual.
Do a few months of Winter with "colder" water and less food, then mimic summer time (when they would breed) with warmer water and and increase of supplemental feeding

I would imagine this is best done in a tank like mine where it has become established and is used to running without a skimmer so that the sperm/eggs/larva don't get sucked up

Thoughts or maybe something that I'm missing? If anything, this would give my flame scallop and all we can eat buffet

Worth a shot... however, have a read of this email from Daphne Fautin (she is an invert zoologist and professor at Kansas university... her PhD was earned studying anemone reproduction)

Daphne Fautin:Sea anemones do not mate. Those of most species, as is true of marine animals in general, simply release gametes into the water; there sperm and eggs unite and a larva is the eventual result. The larva lives in the water, being carried around by it, for some time, then metamorphoses and settles onto the substratum, where those of most species live without moving very far for the rest of their (long) lives.
This is true of most anemones but not all. The reproductive biology of fewer than a dozen of the 1000+ species of anemones has been studied, and *M. doreensis* is not one of them. From simple observation, we know that at least some individuals of *M. doreensis* are hermaphrodites (one animal can make both eggs and sperm) but we do not know if they are self-fertile (if the sperm of an individual can fertilize its own eggs). We know nothing about its natural spawning or larval life. Larvae of few marine organisms successfully survive in home aquaria -- commonly they are small and so get filtered out. Also, if they must eat (not all do -- some live on yolk from the eggs), their food has to be small enough for them to engulf it, and, of course, of an appropriate kind (which we do not know for nearly any anemone -- except that it must be animal, because all anemones are carnivores).
For most species, we do not know what triggers spawning. In nature, animals typically spawn on some sort of environmental cue such as a full moon. Obviously, the eggs, especially, must begin to be formed long before that, and for the species that have been studied, the process begins many months earlier. Obviously too, there must be triggers to start the process, and we have no idea of what they are. In aquaria, presumably, such triggers are absent, so even if spawning occurs (which it many upon change of water, for example, I am told), it is unlikely to be natural and the eggs might not even be ripe. Of course there is also the need to have ripe sperm at the same time as ripe eggs.
I am not an aquarist. I study these animals in nature and my book on anemonefish and their host anemones was written as a field guide -- although I know it is informative to aquarists, for which I am glad. But in the book I write that I oppose keeping host anemones in home aquaria for many reasons. 1) None of the anemones that host anemonefish (unlike anemonefish) can be captive bred, although many people have tried for many years. Perhaps sometime someone will discover a way to do so, but how many animals will have to die first? The only people to have had limited success live RIGHT beside the ocean where the animals live and the aquaria are in open air, so presumably the environmental cues are present. This means that animals keep having to be taken from nature, and it is clearly taking a toll -- they are disappearing from their natural range. (NB Some people use the term "captive bred" to mean "captive propagated," which may be by asexual means, as in "fragging" colonial corals; but no anemones are colonial, and only a minority naturally reproduce asexually, contrary to common opinion, so most anemones can reproduce only sexually -- thus the first sentence of this section.) 2) They are disappearing because not only are they being taken but they are not being replaced -- because their natural recruitment is low. Although they may spawn yearly or even more often, larval mortality is high and survival to large size is low. This correlates both with their large size and their longevity (think of the fecundity and longevity of mice and elephants: host anemones are the elephants) -- for the anemonefish system to work, with fishes that can live several decades, the host anemones must live a century and probably several centuries. 3) Even if you manage to keep one of these animals alive for several years, it is a fraction of its lifespan in nature. While you have it, it is not contributing to replenishing the natural population of its own species, and you have removed from nature an essential part of the habitat for anemonefish, so all fish that had been living in the anemone, and certainly those that would have colonized it during its lifetime, will not exist.
You ask a perceptive question. My answer is that it is impossible to simulate the natural environment in your home aquarium. So you are unlikely to have natural behaviors and physiology. Captive-held animals can teach us certain things. We learned some things about anemonefish in aquaria that we could never have learned in nature because we could keep the fishes without anemones, which never happens in nature. But other things we have learned have no relevance to nature -- some of the behaviors of anemonefishes in captivity are never seen in nature (like feeding their anemones), for understandable reasons. If you keep these animals (which I would encourage you not to do), you are likely to see much that is unnatural, and knowing what is natural (and we know all too little) may not be very helpful.

Disclaimer... this dates back to 2009 so much may have changed since then, but not an area of expertise for me I'm afraid.

 

[keddre]

Worth a shot... however, have a read of this email from Daphne Fautin (she is an invert zoologist and professor at Kansas university... her PhD was earned studying anemone reproduction)

Can you link me to this whole article? Some I knew and some of that was new to me.

 

[Gweeds1980]

That's it I'm afraid... wasn't an article, was a reply to an email. Soz!

 

[keddre]

That's it I'm afraid... wasn't an article, was a reply to an email. Soz!

Oh ok, thanks. I'm still getting into the deeper science behind reef keeping so I'm actively looking for new sources. Unfortunately for me, I'm land locked in the Midwest so my local library doesn't have much; I am still checking Ohio link though (all of Ohio's college libraries linked together and sharing academic books).