Anemone Prices: Bubble Tips, Rock Flowers, and What's Fair
Current cross-vendor pricing for the anemones reefers actually buy, from budget rock flowers to named bubble-tip strains.
Published July 29, 2026 · figures recomputed from data through September 5, 2026 · by Reef Price Index
Two anemones dominate what reefers actually buy: the bubble-tip (Entacmaea quadricolor), because it's the anemone clownfish most reliably adopt, and the rock flower (Phymanthus crucifer), because it's the affordable way to scatter color across the rockwork. They're also two very different markets, and the price data shows it.
Anemones, priced today
| Anemone | Low | Median | High | Listings | Vendors |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bubble Tip Anemone | $99.99 | $174.99 | $699.99 | 21 | 4 |
| Rock Flower Anemone | $29.00 | $169.99 | $499.00 | 34 | 4 |
| Condylactis Anemone | $49.99 | $49.99 | $49.99 | 5 | 1 |
The bubble-tip market: a strain market like corals
Bubble tips run from $99.99 to $699.99 — and that top end belongs to named color strains. Because BTAs clone themselves by splitting, every named strain behaves like a coral morph: the parent splits, supply grows, and the price of last year's grail steps down. An ordinary green or rose BTA near the $174.99 median is the same animal, husbandry-wise, as a top-shelf named strain. You're paying for coloration and the name — which is a legitimate purchase, as long as you know that's the purchase. Splitting also means the patient buyer's classic move: hobbyist-fragged rose BTAs from a local keeper have always been the category's best per-dollar deal, and vendor prices for common strains have to compete with that reality.
The rock flower market: color lottery at commodity prices
Rock flowers cluster low — median $169.99 across 34 listings — because they don't clone and don't carry named lines; each one is an individually colored animal from Caribbean collection. Vendors grade them (ordinary palettes cheap, "ultra" multicolor patterns at the top), so the range $29.00–$499.00 is mostly a grading curve. Practical consequence: this is the category where WYSIWYG photos matter at even modest prices, because no two animals are alike and "ultra" is whatever the photographer says it is. Judge the photo, not the grade word.
Before any anemone: the honest checklist
- Anemones are a commitment corals aren't. They move, they sting what they touch, and they want mature, stable tanks. The cheap rock flower is the forgiving entry; a wandering BTA in a young mixed reef is a classic expensive mistake.
- Clownfish don't need one. Captive-bred clowns host all sorts of surrogates (or nothing). Buy an anemone because you want the anemone.
- Check the price against the median, then the listing against the photo. Both tables above update daily on the species pages — bubble tips here and rock flowers here.