Tank Pics Blue Carpet Nem

I watched this video and fell in love with the big blue carpet anemone (that they highlight at 16:01):



Usually for Christmas I get chocolate, sweaters, socks, deodorant (Hey, what are they trying to say?)... but nobody ever has talked about getting me a blue carpet nem. So... tis the season to pick out a present for myself! LOL

I started looking around for one and studying to learn a little more about carpet nems. The one in the video is a Gigantea, which I hear is less hardy, so I'd really prefer a Haddoni carpet nem. Terry over at TNT Corals told me she could always order stuff in for me, so I figured I'd see what she could do. I told her I wanted a "small" one, preferably about 6", with really nice blue in it. I figured I'd rather have a small one with great color and room to grow than a big brown one. I sent her a few pics of what I was looking for just before Christmas. She made some calls, and put one of her guys to work searching through the import system out in California.

It took about a week. Last night I got the call from Terri-- her guy found one in blue, 6" diameter, at an importer in California, right off the plane from Australia. She sent me a couple of pictures taken under halide, and I said, "Buy it!"

Terri asked me if I wanted to have it shipped to my place, or to her in Marshalltown. I opted to have it go to her, since I would like to drop in and get some pointers from her and see the rest of her current inventory. The shipment comes in tomorrow morning!

Terri was helpful, giving me a lot of pointers and care resources.

I have a spot picked out for it where it should be able to grow for quite a while before it will need a relocation... as long as it doesn't want to go walking around! (I've heard horror stories about carpet nems blocking an overflow to cause living room flooding).

I will post some pictures of it after I get it in my tank-- I'm excited!

 

OK, today I made the trip to TNT Corals. Terri is looking great, with a fresh haircut and everything (for those of you that have been keeping her in your prayers)! We unboxed the nem and gave it a lookover, cleaned it off, and did some drip acclimation to put it into some fresh water. She acclimated it in very dim light since its been in the dark for a while. The animal seemed to have minimal stress and was in pretty good shape. I didn't even see any torn tentacles on it.

After I got it home, I stuck it on the far right of my tank, on a shelf about 7" up from the bottom of the tank. It kept lifting 1/2 of its foot up, alternating sides as if it was standing on something it didn't like. This pic was with the Kessil spotlights turned all the way to white, and with a blue-blocker filter film held in front of my iphone.

The foot has a nice blue to it. I was told the foot is usually brown, so I was really happy to see color on the foot too.

Here is a pic with 80% white and 20% blue light. I tried to give it some shrimp, but it didn't seem too interested to eat.

Here is a pic with 100% white light, but without the blue-blocker film.

After the nem was squirming around for a while it finally decided to leave, and decided to stick all over some of my other corals. So, I took the shelf where I had tried to put it, and scrubbed it really clean. It was slippery and had a little detritus on it, and I figured maybe that was what the nem was upset about. Then I plopped the nem back where I had it (those things are sticky!). This time it stuck down right away and stayed put. It even laid out flat, as if it was saying, "Ahhh... nice!" This pic was taken in 100% white, with the blue blocker. The actual color of the carpet nem is less purple, and more regular blue than the photo. For whatever reason my phone is terrible at taking pictures of blue. So, here is what it looks like now! Hopefully my clowns will take a shine to it tomorrow.

Terri gave me a great deal on some other stuff I got too, throwing in a few freebies. I got a couple rock flowers, a couple mimi-maxis, and she had some great big fiji clams, with dark and light blue variegation. She is doing some end-of-year inventory reduction and my wife really wanted a clam, so I had to grab one (blue looks a lot better in person than with my camera again).

This is really cool... she had some of this stuff in inventory, and I couldn't leave it behind. I moved a few frags off of one of my magnetic frag racks and filled it up already. I like this thing. I might have to buy another one I like it so much. If anyone is looking at some aquascaping, whatever this stuff is, its great.

OK... just when I said the blue carpet nem was happy where it was, it went for another walk. Hopefully this isn't going to be a late night! I'll post some updates tomorrow.

 

I ended up putting it at the base of a rock last night, and it more or less stayed there. This morning it had moved into the shade and is sitting in a spot with not much flow and no direct light. I might let it stay there and see if it moves on its own, but I did turn up my powerheads to help get it some flow. Its on the rock pretty good, but if it starts coming up like its trying to walk around I will probably just grab it and try putting it in another spot.

 

Reef drama today.

The nem was hanging out near the spot where my banded coral shrimp always sits, and this morning the banded coral shrimp was much farther away from his usual spot, in a new location, and the nem had a torn edge and was very unhappy looking.

My guess is that the nem got the shrimp, and the shrimp was stuck, and some sort of a fight happened and the shrimp got away and said, "that's it I'm out of this neighborhood!" So, I grabbed the unhappy looking nem and put it in a much better spot for light and flow.

He looks much better after a few hours, all spread out and big, but his mouth was hanging open which is probably not a good sign. I fed him some mysis shrimp, and he was Johnny-on-it with that.

It could just be my perception, but he seems to appear bigger in white light than in blue light. Maybe he likes the white light better?