The green bubble tip anemone is the default bubble tip and the cheapest on most price lists. Size varies a lot between shops, and a small one is often a recent split rather than a young animal. It is reef safe with caution and suits a keeper who has kept a reef tank for a while.
Did you know
Keepers who wanted one green bubble tip anemone often end up with several along the same rock. Every one is a clone of the first, since splitting is the common route in aquariums.
Caring for the green bubble tip anemone
A green bubble tip anemone needs strong reef lighting, such as LED, T5 or metal halide. Give it moderate flow that does not blast it directly. It wants a spot on the lower to mid rockwork, with room to expand and eventually split.
Add it only to a tank of at least 30 gal (115 L) that has been running for several months. The water there should be stable and mature, at 75 to 81°F (24 to 27°C) with a pH of 8.1 to 8.4. Drip acclimate it slowly.
Most of its energy comes from the photosynthetic zooxanthellae in its tissue. On top of that, target feed it chopped shrimp, fish or silverside a couple of times a week.
It can walk around the tank on its pedal disc, like every true anemone. Shield powerhead and overflow intakes, and keep it at a distance from corals it could sting on the way past.
In the wild it hosts maroon, tomato, cinnamon and Clark's clownfish. Captive bred ocellaris and percula clownfish will often adopt one just as readily. It reproduces readily by longitudinal fission, splitting down the middle into two genetically identical anemones.
Good to know
The green bubble tip gets its green cast from a fluorescent protein in its tissue, which sits over the brown of its symbiotic algae. Under blue-heavy reef lighting the green fluoresces strongly, so listing photos rarely match what you see over the tank. The shade shifts as the algae population changes, which is why a struggling animal looks washed out before it bleaches white. Green and rose animals are the same species, and neither is a subspecies or a fixed genetic line. It is often sold plainly as a bubble tip anemone.
In the wild
The green bubble tip is the wild-type look of this anemone, common across Indo-Pacific reefs and into the Red Sea. It is the form you would meet on a dive rather than a captive creation. Stock reaches shops both wild-collected and as captive splits, and sellers do not always say which. No founder colony or breeder stands behind it.
Symbiotic relationships
Clownfish and their host anemones
A clownfish lives inside an anemone that stings and eats other fish its size. Its mucus coat keeps the anemone's stinging cells from firing, and a new fish builds that protection up over hours of brief touches. The fish gets a refuge no predator will follow it into and a nest site at the anemone's base. The anemone gets a guard that drives off the butterflyfish that would graze its tentacles, a steady supply of nitrogen from the fish's waste, and water movement at night, when the fish fans its fins among the tentacles and the anemone takes up more oxygen. Only ten anemone species host clownfish in the wild, and each clownfish species uses its own short list of them.
Captive-bred clownfish have never seen an anemone and do not need one; they settle for a coral, a powerhead or a corner of the tank. If you want the pairing, the anemone is the harder animal by far and goes in first, into a mature tank with strong light and stable water, at the tank size its own profile lists. The bubble tip anemone is the hardy host, and the one most clownfish accept in captivity even when it is not a natural host, so a clownfish profile lists it as the usual tank host where that is the case. The sebae, magnificent and carpet anemones are marked difficult, and the carpets eat fish. Expect a paired clownfish to defend its anemone against everything else in the tank.
Several small crustaceans live where almost nothing else can: among the tentacles of an anemone. Sexy shrimp perch in the tentacles in a cluster, bobbing their tails in the display that named them. The white-spot anemone shrimp is near transparent apart from its spots and lives on carpet anemones. The porcelain anemone crab sits at the anemone's edge and filters plankton from the water with two fan-like arms. Pederson's cleaner shrimp lives in the Caribbean corkscrew anemone and cleans fish from there. In every case the anemone is a bodyguard: its sting keeps off the small fish that would eat the shrimp. The anemone gains little, and the white-spot shrimp will nibble its host's tentacles when it is hungry.
Give each of them its anemone. Sexy shrimp take a rock flower anemone, a bubble tip or a carpet. The white-spot shrimp and the porcelain crab want a carpet anemone or a long tentacle anemone, both of which need a mature tank at the tank size their profiles list. Pederson's shrimp wants a corkscrew anemone or a condy. Without a host they perch on a coral or hide in the rock and are picked off by any fish that eats shrimp, so they suit a peaceful nano reef. A clownfish will evict them from an anemone it has claimed.
Is a green bubble tip anemone a different species from the bubble tip anemone?
No. A green bubble tip anemone is a variety of the bubble tip anemone, Entacmaea quadricolor, and it wants the same tank, water and food as the species.
What size tank does a green bubble tip anemone need?
A green bubble tip anemone needs at least 30 gal (115 L).
What does a green bubble tip anemone eat?
A green bubble tip anemone takes most of its energy from the photosynthetic zooxanthellae in its tissue. It also accepts chopped shrimp, fish or silverside, target fed a couple of times a week.
How big does a green bubble tip anemone get?
An adult green bubble tip anemone reaches about 11.8 in (30 cm).
How does a green bubble tip anemone breed?
A green bubble tip anemone reproduces readily by longitudinal fission. It splits down the middle into two genetically identical anemones.
