First Cut on RBTA

T

ToddLaCo

Premium Member
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.
 
@ToddLaCo wrote:
Just a quick note before I get a million requests for anemones. I am sorry but I will only be selling to LFS' (retailers) said:
Interesting choice. There is, of course, much more money to be made by selling to both individuals and retailers.

To each their own.
Click to expand...
 
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... :cry: )

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.
 
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!)
 
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.
 
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! :wink:
 
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