Thursday, July 15, 2010

Post Cutting Pictures

So I apologize for my late post, I had two tests these past two weeks and so I was kind of busy. Anyway, here are some pictures of the anemone 4 days post cutting. I will have to get some 24 hour post pictures next time I cut because it was a pretty rapid healing process with these anemones.


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Here are some from just about 5 minutes ago. The lights are out in the tank and so I took the picture with a flash. You can really tell how well these clones are healing by the first picture. They both have fully formed mouths and are eating PE mysis like pigs! I believe the success with these anemones after cutting is to really have more than adequate water flow just after being cut.


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Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Rose Bubble is cut!

About time right? So I finally went ahead and cut the oldest rose bubble tip in my grow out tank in the garage. It was 9 weeks this week since I bought it thinking it would split on its own. I guess the anemone had different thoughts since it refused to split naturally. I have set up some pictures of how I did the manual propagation of the Rose bubble anemone.

First I did a five gallon water change and put the water aside. I then set up a cutting area with all the necessary tools. My handy dandy fish towel, a filet knife, a plastic cutting board, some Revive and a little tupperware for dipping.

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Now, I gently removed the anemone from the side of the tank and laid him out on the cutting board. I made sure to try and get all the tentacles off the oral disc and to line up the mouth just right. Since the anemone had already started to split I also tried to align the anemone so I would be cutting with that already split part.

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I put the filet knife in one side of the mouth and cut straight down from the corner of the mouth. I then repeated this same step with the other side. I then placed the two halves into the bucket with the old tank water and let it sit for about 10-15 minutes with an air stone to create some water movement. It is key to let the anemones purge all their nasties after cutting in a separate container than the tank. I then took the tupperware and added in some old tank water and then added a cap full of Revive as a post cut dip before I placed the two halves into the tank. I let them sit in this dip for about 5 minutes.

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I then placed the anemones into the tank and turned on all the pumps to create some water flow to help heal the anemones. The first picture is seconds after putting the anemone into the water. And the following pictures are about 1 hour post cutting. The last picture shows pretty well how the cutting went with the anemone.

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I just went down and took a peek at the two halves and they are doing great! They are already almost pinched closed from where I cut them. I will update you guys tomorrow with 24 hour post pictures! Keep in tune!