saltysweet1
New member
Ok this is kindly of a crazy story. And you can say I'm kinda of a novice on this but had some good luck so I'm sharing my experience. I was at the petco in Joliet one day a few months back just getting some odds and ends and I see this white ball that looked like a closed up flower . I didn't know what it was so I asked. The last told me so I got it. Well the thing was heavy . Ten pounds easily. I'm trying to take it out of the bag and it lands on the sand bed face down on sharp rocks. I'm like great now I just killed it. I wait and watch. Day one it moves to the rocks all bleached out small dieing. Day two it starts oozing stuff out of it. Thick nasty black stuff. I kept an eye on my skimmer. It was going nuts. I seen some crazy stuff come out and heat looked like pellet food. Day three it was still doing it but more expanded and as it would puke it would fold over like it was trying to stop like you would your hand river your mouth. I was worried that it was going to kill everything. Day four it started to show signs of green color and florescent under atinic lights. Buy the first week it was dug into the rocks and relaxed a layed out. I then started seeing the signs of the beast I got my hands on . Now remind you when I seen him puking I did a lot of reading and found out you should never buy one in bad heath and the one I got had a few days left were it was at. In the first month it didn't move much just got a bit larger. Also ate my mandarin fish that I loved. Well by the second month I wanted him gone. I posted about it. Got a few offers but not really what I wanted. So I kept him. I handed a few more fish and they do well not getting hit by him. But I did lose a tang and watch my pink spotted goby die. I even fought to get him lose from its grip but the fish was toast. That anemone is one hell of an exfoliater. My hands were never so soft after. He is very sticky. And strong. And a monster. In the wild full size I don't think you could get away. Ok he is in a 21 inch tall tank. He goes up behind the rocks 3/4 the way up. His foot can be seen from under the tank looking up at the glass. Its almost eight inches wide at the base . He covers a large section of the tank right now. Lol. And when I was fighting with him he tried to pull my hand back down behind the rock . I do have open cuts from my job. I can tell you a good sting feels like an electrical shock. The hunting of this animal is very unique . I was trying to figure out how he got one fish I had. Well I noticed if any food landed on the anemone he would eat it all but leave just a little and then move it to an outside edge and hold it out. It's a lure. Crazy. I also noticed one day while I was cleaning my hand was hovering him causing a shadow over him. He started to reach up for my hand and tried to grab me. Interesting behaviour. I did get a crab to host him and they are happy together. My clown wants nothing to do with it . But it is getting very large. I only feed him when his mouth is sticking out for more then a day or two. It's going on six months that I have had him. A very beautiful creature . And very active , the bulbs expanding and contracting in waves . Then out of now where a huge twitch . I do need to get rid of him I do want to add more fish and not stress out when watching the ones I have. Lol but the beast is so darn cool. That's what I'll name him from this point on the beast. Over size if fully open over 16 inches and at least 16 inches tall. Though his foot is only about seven or eight. My tank is a simple set up pc lights 10k/6k and 460/420 mix bulbs. A simple wet dry I modded a bit to seal it better so the stand stays dry. A cheap eBay special protein skimmer that does a great job and the smell of that black tar will make you puke lol. Then a inline filter module I barely use but do put in some gfo if I feel like it. And I just toss in a back of carbon over the pump intake elbow. Though my overflow is filled with live rock and cheto and other bad algeas lol but not really much in the display. I do have tons of the aptisia on the rocks in the over flow but none in the tank. Figure that out. My guess is the beast. Though they might not be able to make it threw the filter. Or my peppermint shrimp just eat them. The tank is crazy . I threw it together just with spare parts just to house some stuff while I was working on my big tank and it's turning into a very nice tank. This is just one of my five tanks. I have a one gallon fish bowl that has some coral a snail and a hermit that's been living for almost a year in the window of my kitchen and I only change the water in it once a month and there are so many pods some are about an 1/4 inch big. The glass is just covered with pods. Hundreds. Crazy stuff. I have a huge like five inch wide sally Lightfoot . A five inch hermit. A brittle star that can touch both sides of my 28 nano cube at the same time. But the beast tops them all. I'll keep you all up dated on him as I learn more of what this animal likes besides fresh fish lol. I do dose the water with fuel once a week just to keep trace elements up cause I can only guess how much iodine he pulls out of the water . I could test the water for everything but don't have much coral other then a big huge xenia farm a shroom a few zoos a little piece of gsp , a few heads of blue candy canes and a large colony of bright yellow sponge in this tank. I just let it do its thing and I keep an eye objects the filters when the profiler gets dirty I change it. The tank has been up and running for almost a year to the day and I only changed out maybe thirty gallons of water for the year. And it's only a sixty gallon. So it's not like I'm doing something magical to aid in its heath. Like I said from the start I got lucky. And I saved the beast from what looked to be a certain death. And the sad part is I don't even have any power heads in the tank. Though if my urchin wasn't eating all my cloraline my rocks would be a deep purple but I like him. Though he even picks up my hermits from time to time. Once he had my glass thermometer . It was funny did it think that it could hide under it. But I guess to all that reads this ,reef on. May we always enjoy our little box of Ocean.
