Gary Majchrzak
Team RC
multicolor gigantea
- Thread starter Gary Majchrzak
- Start date
Gary Majchrzak
Team RC
3 year anniversary this month
3 year anniversary this month
3 year anniversary this month
ChuckG
New member
Awesome tank Gary.. i have been follwing along and picking up pointers along the way.
I love the gigantea and hope to one day keep one. Is "multicolor" the standard name for the specimen you have and can they called by other names as well? I see some called tan or brown but they don't seem to have the blue and green highlights to them like yours. Not sure if those are just unhealthy specimens or are truly just brown.
I love the gigantea and hope to one day keep one. Is "multicolor" the standard name for the specimen you have and can they called by other names as well? I see some called tan or brown but they don't seem to have the blue and green highlights to them like yours. Not sure if those are just unhealthy specimens or are truly just brown.
InsaneClownFish
New member
Very nice. I actually find myself staring at your purple cap. No matter where I place frags of mine in the tank they always seem to look more brown than purple. Yours look nice and grape ape.
Great anemone. Great tank.
Great anemone. Great tank.
Gary Majchrzak
Team RC
BonsaiNut
Premium Member
It's a female
When you can't see eggs like this, it doesn't necessarily mean it's a male - it might just be off-season.
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marc price
New member
gary, how is it your imperator angel hasn't touched the gig and i had my a blueface tear a haddoni apart? i'd like to have another large angel but don't want to risk my anemones and here you are!
Gary Majchrzak
Team RC
IME many Angelfish and Butterflyfish (mine included) will pick at anemones like this one. At one point I was considering either getting rid of this anemone or getting rid of certain fish. Luckily, I was able to work it out by feeding the fishes (and anemone) more food. (I don't believe more feedings will solve the problem in every case.)
In any event, being able to work things out in this aquarium gave me a great feeling of accomplishment
In any event, being able to work things out in this aquarium gave me a great feeling of accomplishment
Gary Majchrzak
Team RC
I can't recall trying to sex this anemone, BN.It's a female
To the best of my knowledge it hasn't spawned in my aquarium yet.
Are you in agreement with me that there's no way to determine it's sex based on these pictures?
BonsaiNut
Premium Member
It's pretty unmistakable, though a tighter focus and stronger backlighting would allow you to make out the individual eggs (which are pretty small). Visual presence of eggs identifies females, but absence of eggs does not necessarily indicate males since females can be without eggs for some periods during the year.
BonsaiNut
Premium Member
If you are REALLY interested in gametogenic development in sea anemones, Dr. Anna Scott just published an interesting paper on the subject about 10 months ago. It focuses on E. quadricolor due to her location in Australia (where only E. quadricolor and H. crispa are available for her studies) but I think you'll find the content really interesting since it addresses some of the advanced subjects that come up on this board.
Anna Scott and Peter Harrison: Gametogenic and reproductive cycles of the sea anemone, Entacmaea quadricolor (note the file is about 1.5 MB in size)
Anna Scott and Peter Harrison: Gametogenic and reproductive cycles of the sea anemone, Entacmaea quadricolor (note the file is about 1.5 MB in size)
BonsaiNut
Premium Member
Just to cover my bases, it should be noted that some anemone species are simultaneous hermaphrodites; though S. gigantea is not supposed to be one of these. Additionally, I am not aware of any information regarding juvenile or non-reproductive individuals. It is possible that a juvenile female might not exhibit eggs simply because it has not reached a certain level of maturity.
BonsaiNut
Premium Member
I really hijacked this thread, but oh well...
An interesting part of this research is that 16 different color morphs were sampled - and that certain color morphs were highly skewed toward one sex or the other. Males, for example, were almost exclusively one color morph. Very interesting and very curious.
I asked her if she felt her results were different due to her sub-tropical location. She couldn't really say. Though her research covers a fair section of the East Coast of Australia, it would be interesting to see what a field survey in the Red Sea (for example) would turn up. It's not really the direction she is taking her research at the moment.
Also... I found it notable that the biospsies were non-lethal. What's to stop someone from going out to the reef, "harvesting" eggs and sperm using this method, and then artificially raising the offspring?
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