Bubble Tip Anemone

Care at a glance

Overview

Give it strong reef lighting (LED, T5, or metal halide) and moderate flow that does not blast it directly. It will take chopped shrimp, fish, or silverside a couple of times a week from a target feeder, on top of what it makes from its zooxanthellae. Like every true anemone it can walk around the tank on its pedal disc, so shield powerhead and overflow intakes and give it distance from corals it could sting on the way past. Naturally it hosts maroon, tomato, cinnamon, and clark's clownfish; captive bred ocellaris and percula, whose natural hosts are harder to find in the trade, will often adopt one just as readily. Drip acclimate it slowly and only add it to a tank that has been running for several months with stable, mature water.

In the wild

Found throughout the Indo-Pacific from the Red Sea to Samoa, usually with its base wedged into a crevice in the reef or nestled among the branches of an Acropora or Seriatopora coral head, from a few feet down to over 30 m. In the aquarium it wants a spot on the lower to mid rockwork under strong light, with room to expand and eventually split. It is the most widely kept host anemone in the hobby and the easiest one to pair with a clownfish.

Good to know

Entacmaea quadricolor is Latin for four colored, a nod to how the column, tentacles, tentacle tips, and mouth can each show a different hue. Like other anemones it hosts photosynthetic zooxanthellae in its tissue and gets most of its energy from them. The bulbous swellings that give the bubble tip its name are thought to help pack in extra algae, though they can shrink or disappear under lower light. It reproduces readily by longitudinal fission, splitting down the middle into two genetically identical anemones.

Did you know

A single well fed bubble tip anemone can split into a small colony of genetically identical clones within a year or two, which is why aquaculture farms propagate BTAs for the trade instead of collecting them from the wild the way most other host anemones still are.

Related species

• 

  Long Tentacle Anemone

  Macrodactyla doreensis

  15.7 in (40 cm)40 gal (150 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)

• 

  Condy Anemone

  Condylactis gigantea

  11.8 in (30 cm)40 gal (150 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)

• 

  Aurora Anemone

  Heteractis aurora

  11.8 in (30 cm)50 gal (190 L)72–79°F (22–26°C)

• 

  Sebae Anemone

  Heteractis crispa

  15.7 in (40 cm)40 gal (150 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)

• 

  Malu Anemone

  Heteractis malu

  7.9 in (20 cm)40 gal (150 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)

• 

  Magnificent Anemone

  Heteractis magnifica

  19.7 in (50 cm)53 gal (200 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)