we bought an anemone from a local pet store the other week with some coupons. We have another anemone that we got on our live rock that we have successfully kept for over a year. I believe him to be a sort of rock anemone. Anyway the new one we thought was a bubble tip. On bringing him home we decided to look to see exactly what he was but couldn't find anything with exactly his shape and color. Then we discovered why. He's bleached. We didn't know that it's not good to buy a white anemone, we never researched bubble tips before since we didn't have one. Anyway my husband did a bunch of research and came to find out about the importance of zooxanthellae in anemones sustaining it's life. I know there are many people on this forum that have been into sw for a long time so would like any further info on the subject anyone could offer. These are his conclusions
FOOD: Seems that the best avenue is regular feeding of small bites. 3 times a week direct feeding (shrimp, clams, silversides, krill, plankton, mysis or any meaty seafood) plus whatever they can filter. Since Zooxanthellae is obviously depleted, anemone will be almost entirely dependent on captured food. Feed no bigger than size of mouth. One thing that occurs in reputable articles is the mention of iron supplements helping zooxanthellae. Zooxanthellae is essentially dinoflagellate algae ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooxanthella
). Iron can create algae blooms ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization
) I also found out from food nutrition sites that things like shrimp and clams which go well in their diet are in fact high in iron ( http://www.gicare.com/pated/edtot38.htm
). So high iron food or tank supplements with iron will help. I think though that iron rich food is most likely way to get iron to zooxanthellae and not create other problems in tank, but that is opinion.
LIGHT: Also is the obvious need for adequate light. Zooxanthellae uses photosynthesis to create carbs and O2 for anemone. Certain species need higher light than others but in general 4 wpg is adequate. That's what's over mine now. I think I will add some more n see if anemone try to seek shade. It would seem the more the better for zooxanthellae growth (since it makes energy by photosynthesis) but if they hide for shelter you've gone to far.
TEMP: Temperature is important too. 74 to 78 ideally but as always constancy is more important than exact. Though a note here... temp swings too far up or down can actually be the primary cause for them to lose the zooxanthellae in the first place. The anemone (or coral) ejects zooxanthellae that won't work efficiently in new temp in hope of finding new symbiont algae that will. Problem is that it rarely does find it soon enough and dies. Only a few anemones like temps higher then 78 so unless you know for fact you have one that does stay below.
Of course the one thing I know now that I didn't know then is that there is no such thing as a white anemone. At least not a tropical one (there is Diadumene leucolena, ghost anemone but it lives along from Maine to North Carolina). Don't buy an anemone without color.