First Cut on RBTA

For those that don't know, I am starting a coral farm and I made my first cut of a RBTA that I bought wild caught in October. I will post chronological procedures, including pictures.

Unfortunately I forgot to snap a picture before removing it from the tank. The first picture is of it deflated in a tupperware bowl. I let it sit in the bowl for 5 to 10 minutes to allow it to expell most of it's internal liquid before cutting. The anemone looks quite small here, but it was about 6 inches across right before I removed it from the tank.

Please excuse the picture quality. I don't have the best camera, especially for Macro Photos.

I cut the anemone with an $8.00 filet knife I bought at Walmart and it did a great job.

I found the center as best as I could, used my first two fingers as a sort of gate to keep the anemone from sliding and sliced right down the middle with one clean stroke.

This picture is immediately after cutting.

For the next step I placed the two halves in a bucket with aged salt water that I just changed from the anemone tank.

I will leave them in the bucket for about an hour to allow them to slough off most of the mucous they produced from the stress of being cut.

If you look at the half on the left, you can see that it is already closing back together and this picture is within only 5 or 10 minutes of cutting.

Just a quick note before I get a million requests for anemones.

I am sorry but I will only be selling to LFS' (retailers), no private sales.

[GraviT]

Just a quick note before I get a million requests for anemones.

I am sorry but I will only be selling to LFS' (retailers), no private sales.

Interesting choice. There is, of course, much more money to be made by selling to both individuals and retailers.

To each their own.

Todd - Very interesting thread... I'm being too picky about the source anemone for my prop business, so I still don't have a mother anemone... (Well, I had one, but something contaminated the prop system and it died... )

Kevin - I've actually made the same decision for my anemone prorogation business... Yes, there's more money to be made per transaction selling retail then selling wholesale, but wholesale will buy a guaranteed number per month, plus you won't have to deal with "Hello, I bought one of your anemones, and put it in my goldfish bowl with Nemo, and it died and killed Nemo, I want my money back, and you have to buy me a new Nemo too!" either...

That is actually one of my pet peaves. I despise business' that ride both sides of the fence. Accept for rare instances I will not buy products from a wholesaler that also sells retail, and they must be selling retail at or above what I can charge for their product. My present end state in my business plan is actually to sell to wholesalers. The only catch is that it will take me 1 to 2 years to propagate enough stock, depending on species, to support sales to wholesale. The idea is to sell a small amount (that wont affect my broodstock levels) to help defray my farming costs in the mean time.

Brian, I must offer my belated sympathy for your loss. I have seen how endeared these Sherman RBTA's are in th DFW area. I was following that thread with great interest.

Hope you can get back up and running soon.

Here are hourly post cut updates.

I will put them in seperate posts since I am not quite savvy enough to get them in one with text associated with each picture. Sorry for the inconvenience.

1 hour post cutting.

2 hours post cutting.

3 hours post cutting and last post for tonight.

Wow, they do cinch up quick!

Thanks for the kind words... I'd give up and go for a non-Sherman RBTA, but heck, that it's of the Sherman strain is even in my business plan! (Yeah, I know, I could change it, but...)

I've got 2 Sherman's in my display, I'm just having a bear of a time getting one of 'em out...

Thanks for the updated thread, I look forward to seeing how this goes for you, and hopefully I'll be joining ya' as friendly competition soon! (Emphasis on the word friendly!)

[GraviT]

Best of luck with your business endeavor. I too plan to setup a small scale propagation business one day and would strive to sell to retailers. However, I would still offer frags to my fellow hobbyists as I feel I owe these people more than I could ever repay. Please don't take this as a criticism as you are, of course, more than entitled to handle your business as you see fit.

Brian, I too feel your pain. My dearly loved RTBA that I've had for over 3 years decided to detach itself and go floating..all the way across my tank and into a modded MJ (stream mod). I woke to a cloudy tank and had to cut the remains of the anemone out of the prop housing. I still have 2 green BTAs left, but they just aren't the same.

Sorry I wasn't able to update the thread yesterday. The Reserve Marines had drill this weekend and I was working.

Here a couple of pictures at 7:00 AM with no lights on right before I went to work.

Here are a couple at the 24 hour post cut time.

You can see that they are still looking very healthy and closing up quite quickly.

The thing that gets me is they have better, larger bulbs on the tips than they ever did pre-cutting.

[GraviT]

I believe the consensus is that the bulbs aren't necessarily a sign that the anemone is happy, perhaps it's trying to expand it's surface area to absorb more light. Not a bad sign either way!

Looking good, thanks for sharing this information.

Mine have gotten bubble tips in my display primarily when they're stressed out. Big water change, forced change in location, etc...

Thanks for documenting all of this for those of us who will be following behind you!

Here is todays update. They have closed up a little more, but that last 1/4 inch is going a little slower.

All stills looks good and healthy though.

Brian, I see you got another Sherman. Look forward to the updates in your thread.

Todd, thanks again for the continued updates!

Yeah, I got a new Sherman, but it was sold too fresh from it's split IMHO (But I grabbed it anyway, and port in a storm ya' know...)

It right now looks about like the current pics of your cut ones, but I'm hoping for the best...

I should go take some pictures of it, but I've been under the weather pretty bad today and haven't done much, but assuming it's still with us tomorrow, I'll try to get some pics...

HOPEFULLY I'll be posting pictures of my cutting process in 2-3 months!

[mickeyw43]

i really like looking at those pics,they look to be doing great.

Sorry I missed yesterday's update. I have been crazy busy here building my coral farm grow out area, had to throw brakes on the old Dodge today and of course the wife needs some attention also. Hopefully I can keep rockin on the coral farm, but my Harley has been apart for four years now and I can't take it anymore. Of those four years I have been to Iraq for one year and laid up another year due to the clavical injury so I have really only missed two rideable years. I think my priority is switching to the bike for a short spell, but I will keep the cutting up to date until there is nothing to update anymore.

Here is todays update. The anemone has closed a little more, but still not completely. Must be patient and remember that it has only been four days since the cut.

That's still quite impressive!

Have you noticed anything that looks like a mouth re-forming?

The tentacles are so bubbled and full and can't really see much.

I just target fed them a small amount and they are definately trying to get the food to where their mouths should be. You can kind of see something like a mouth opening a little for the food.

Sorry for the lack of updates, but there is not much to note lately, and I have been way to busy with work and putting the Harley back together!!!!!!

The anemones are cruising around the tank and haven't been in a good position for pictures since the last pictures.

I can only see the cut on one of the halves and it looks like a scar, and a rather nicely healing scar at that. I would guess that within one more week you wont even be able to see the "scar".

I think I cut off center also. One half is quite a bit larger than the other, but both are completely healthy. I just may not be able to cut both again at the four week point. The larger half is well on it's way back to uncut size.

its been over a month is nobody going to respond?
any more updates anything?

Honestly, there is really nothing to update. For the last month I have really only been feeding them, adding water, and changing water once a week. I was going to cut the RBTA again a few weeks ago, but like an idiot I had a small chunk of Live Rock in the Prop tank that it never atached to since October, and guess what, it decided to attach to it for the first time right before I was going to cut it. Needless to say I couldn't get it off the rock without tearing it so I shaded it and waited for it to release. Now it is off the rock and the rock is removed from the tank.

The only problem is, about the same time as it released I got another Harley, have been building a custom Harley to get it on the road, and I started working at Lowes part time to help support my reef and Harley addictions.

Unfortunately, my propagation efforts are slow to on hold for a little while.