I have 2 cleaner shrimp <2" long. Very busy little guys. My wife recently bought a condy anemone. I didn't know what she had until I started reading about it ... and wished that she hadn't, but there it is. The body is about 1.5" across & with tentacles is 5" to 6" across.
Incidental ... I also have had a yellow tang for about 2 years. It and the shrimp are doing their thing. Also 5 green chromis which also stop by the cleaners for picking over. And, a few others that seem independent of all of this. Life is normal.
Watching everyone really is fascinating. The condy has placed himself very close to the top of a pile of live rock & has been there for the past 5 or 6 days. The tank has strong lighting. Yesterday I was wondering what I can feed this guy. Wife, also a caterer, produced a bag of very small frozen shrimp a little less than a 1/2" in diameter (they are rolled up). I thawed one out, sliced a very small piece off the tail & fed it to the condy via tweezers. He took it immediately to his mouth. Before he actually got it all of the way in its mouth, one of the cleaner shrimp came over & stole it ... right out of his mouth! WTF?! The tentacles meant nothing to him.
In the past couple of days I had noticed that the cleaners hanging out pretty close to the condy. Occasionally a tentacle latches on to a cleaner. The cleaner pulls it off & continues doing what ever he was doing and not moving away from the condy. I really had thought that the cleaner was snack food for a condy. Not!
Later, during general fish feeding time, I decided to give the whole bit of thawed out shrimp to the condy. I thought the distraction of feeding time would keep the cleaners elsewhere long enough for condy to decide what it was going to do with this big chunk of shrimp. Again. Not! I had to push the cleaner away from the condy with the long tweezers. Twice. Pesky little guy.
Thoughts? I thought cleaner shrimp were complete pacifists. Second, condy anemones are described as aggressive. And, I expected to have to feed the condy by spot feeding from a dropper.
Last, I just saw a suggestion for anemone proofing power heads. Excellent, and high on the todo list.
Incidental ... I also have had a yellow tang for about 2 years. It and the shrimp are doing their thing. Also 5 green chromis which also stop by the cleaners for picking over. And, a few others that seem independent of all of this. Life is normal.
Watching everyone really is fascinating. The condy has placed himself very close to the top of a pile of live rock & has been there for the past 5 or 6 days. The tank has strong lighting. Yesterday I was wondering what I can feed this guy. Wife, also a caterer, produced a bag of very small frozen shrimp a little less than a 1/2" in diameter (they are rolled up). I thawed one out, sliced a very small piece off the tail & fed it to the condy via tweezers. He took it immediately to his mouth. Before he actually got it all of the way in its mouth, one of the cleaner shrimp came over & stole it ... right out of his mouth! WTF?! The tentacles meant nothing to him.
In the past couple of days I had noticed that the cleaners hanging out pretty close to the condy. Occasionally a tentacle latches on to a cleaner. The cleaner pulls it off & continues doing what ever he was doing and not moving away from the condy. I really had thought that the cleaner was snack food for a condy. Not!
Later, during general fish feeding time, I decided to give the whole bit of thawed out shrimp to the condy. I thought the distraction of feeding time would keep the cleaners elsewhere long enough for condy to decide what it was going to do with this big chunk of shrimp. Again. Not! I had to push the cleaner away from the condy with the long tweezers. Twice. Pesky little guy.
Thoughts? I thought cleaner shrimp were complete pacifists. Second, condy anemones are described as aggressive. And, I expected to have to feed the condy by spot feeding from a dropper.
Last, I just saw a suggestion for anemone proofing power heads. Excellent, and high on the todo list.