Long Tentacle Anemone

Care at a glance

Overview

Needs moderate to high lighting and gentle to moderate flow across the sand bed rather than a direct blast, since strong current can dislodge a foot that has not fully buried itself yet. Offer chopped shrimp or silverside once or twice a week. It is a true anemone, so it can and will relocate itself across the sand looking for a better spot; keep it away from powerhead intakes and give any nearby corals a wide berth since it can sting them in passing. In the wild it hosts clark's, pink skunk, orange fin, and ocellaris clownfish, and it is one of the more reliable sand anemone hosts in the aquarium too. Float and drip acclimate it slowly, and only add it to a tank with a deep, mature sand bed already in place.

In the wild

Native to the Indo-Pacific from Japan down through New Guinea to northern Australia, where it buries its column in sand or muddy rubble on shallow reef flats and lagoons with just the oral disc and tentacle crown showing. In the aquarium it needs the same setup: a soft sand bed at least 10 cm deep so its long foot can anchor properly, placed where strong light reaches the substrate rather than tucked under an overhang. It is a popular host anemone, particularly for clark's and ocellaris clownfish.

Good to know

Macrodactyla doreensis is the only species in its genus, though some recent molecular work would fold it into Heteractis (Radianthus). Its tentacles are relatively few and often take on a distinctive twisted, corkscrew shape, especially when the anemone is not fully expanded, which is where the corkscrew anemone nickname comes from. Like other host anemones it carries symbiotic zooxanthellae in its tissue and supplements that energy by catching zooplankton and small prey with its tentacles.

Did you know

The long tentacle anemone buries its foot so deep that an unhappy specimen can seem to vanish into the sand entirely, only to reappear somewhere else in the tank days later once it finds better light or flow.

Related species

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  Bubble Tip Anemone

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  Condy Anemone

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  Sebae Anemone

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  Magnificent Anemone

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  Aurora Anemone

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• 

  Malu Anemone

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