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Removing Anemones from rock in the aquarium

Glenn E King

Non-member
After trying all the standard advice to no avail ( point a power head at the base of the anemone, rub the base with an ice cube etc. ) I discovered an easy method that has worked for me with minimal disturbance to the anemone.

If you have an anemone attached to rock in the aquarium and the rock is too big to remove from the tank or you don't want to remove the rock try this:

Take a short piece of PVC ( 3-4 ") or a PVC elbow large enough to encircle the base of the anemone. It helps to get the anemone to shrink up before you put the PVC around it. If necessary hold the PVC in place with a rock. The open end of the PVC should be pointed toward a light source as much as possible .
The anemone will move up the PVC in an attempt to get to the light. Once it detaches from the rock you can lift the PVC and move the anemone anywhere you want or out of the aquarium . Depending on the anemone they will move in a matter of hours or a day.

I considered selling patented Anemone removal devices for $39.95 + S&H but I decided to share this info for the good of mankind ( or anemone-kind )
 
I tried this when attempting to move my anemone several years ago. Unfortunately, the rock was very porous and the nem just teased me for a month like a sinister game of whack-a-mole errr... nem.
I ended up using a rubbermaid lid attached with rubberbands to the rockwork to get it to slide it's foot over to where I could chip off a small piece of the rock with foot attached.

btw, you think there's a market for Re-Usable sub-zero anemone base separators? we could call it "ICE!" or maybe... "CUBES!"... we'll work on the marketing later, it's the technology that matters :)
 
Unfortunately both the nems I want to remove are at the base of a very large acro.
I've been blasting them with a PH and managed to get them to the back glass.But the acro attached to the glass back there and it's impossible to get a hand or pvc anywhere close to it.The only time it got on the glass in an area I could get to it,I was at work.
 
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