Magnificent Anemone

We cover a wide range of areas for all fish keepers. Discover amazing facts on your favourite fish, learn how to setup a new reef or tropical aquarium and a whole host of useful articles to keep your aquarium looking its best.

Magnificent Anemone

We cover a wide range of areas for all fish keepers. Discover amazing facts on your favourite fish, learn how to setup a new reef or tropical aquarium and a whole host of useful articles to keep your aquarium looking its best.

Fish & Invertebrate Guide >> Invertebrates

The Fish Guide - Magnificent-Anemone

The Magnificent Anemone (Heteractis Magnifica) used to be known as the Ritteri Anemone and is a very popular Clownfish host. It has long tentacles and often a bright purple base. The Magnificent Anemone can grow over 90cm in diameter and will happily host most species of Clownfish.

Sea Anemones are large solitary polyps and have no skeleton. They have a basel or pedal disc which helps them crawl and dig into place. They will move around the aquarium until they find a place to finally settle. Some, once settled, can be virtually impossible to move.

Due to Sea Anemones moving around in the aquarium they can be troublesome. Often they can become caught up in the filter or power heads. They can move a number of feet per day around the aquarium and head for the area of maximum water flow. This is normally close to the power head resulting in disaster. It can be difficult to get the anemone to settle in an aesthetically pleasing spot and often they will settle on the glass.

Anemones need large areas in which they can expand their tentacles and need to be placed in the aquarium somewhere that will allow them to fully open. If they are not happy where you have placed them they will move, once they stay in a particular place make sure there are no corals too close to them as they may sting the coral in an attempt to keep it out of their territory. Anemones can sting people so you should avoid touching the tentacles.

The Sea Anemone has two feeding methods; one being feeding on small fish, shrimp, amphipods and plankton and the other being photosynthesis. The Sea Anemone can absorb Sulphur, Nitrogen and other essential nutrients from the water column or the waste from the symbiotic Clownfish that it hosts.

Harlequin Shrimp

Harlequin Shrimp

Magnificent Anemone

Magnificent Anemone