BTA Advise PICS

[tenwhiteduke]

I went to the LFS yesturday, and puchased a RBTA. My first finally. I have had a GBTA for 6 months now, and he/she started out great, but over the past few months Its just kinda shrunken up and not so pretty as before. I have been feeding it mysis and silversides. It seems to eat the mysis, but the silversides it takes it in, sucks on it a bit, and spits it back out. So I decided to get some info from my LFS, there was a new guy in the store I never met before, and he said "Never Feed your Anemones" That the silversides and shrimp will get them sick. They feed on plankton only.

So thats his advise. But does anyone have any help for me to get my GBTA back up and perky again. The clowns in this tank are scared of the BTA's it seems, they hang out in the brain only. I switched out my YS Maroons with the True Percs. The YSM were in the GBTA all the time. Its been over a month since I did this 6 weeks or more. Does this have anything to do with the GBTA looking so bored?

 

[seapug]

What kind of lights do you have? Your GBTA might be shrinking due to inadequate lighting. The same thing might happen to your new RBTA, so keep an eye on it.

The guy at the LFS was partially correct. Silversides are too large to use as food items. That's why it spit them out. Mysis shrimp are more along the lines of the appropriate size food items, but with strong lighting and a well aged tank, BTAs do not require supplemental feeding. The clowns will often bring food to the anemone as well.

 

[1F2FRFBF]

Ditto on the lighting recommendation, make sure there's enough.

Try feeding krill. You should be able to find frozen cubes at the LFS or even at a Petco.

 

[zma21]

For my sebae, i just take pieces of frozen shrimp you can find at a grocery store and run it under scalding hot water for 5 minutes to thaw it out nice. I cut it in about 6 pieces and refrigerate 5 pieces as i only feed once at a time, and feed twice weekly. I got my nem bleached, and withing three weeks of shrimp feeding, it is back to it's healthy brown and purple tip self.

 

[IkevinI]

I used to feed my RBTA chopped krill, squid shrimp and it used to spit a good portion of it back up. I think the pieces were always to chunky (even when I used a food processor). So switched to defrosting a cube of mysis, straining with a tea leaves strainer, and ball it up and putting it in his tentacles. I never had a problem from then on.

But I do agree with making sure light is not the issue. light should be the primary source of food and then supplement with meats.

 

[digeetech]

I've kept, grew, and split BTA's successfully in a 4 watt per gal PC lit tank. Looks like you have a nano cube with 25w PC lighting? Just check your watts per gal i.e:

watts/gal =watts per gal

Congrats on your RBTA, looks beautiful!

 

[six.line]

Careful, there, digeetech...

One success story doesn't guarantee identical results across the board. In general, it is better to go with stronger lighting.

I'd continue to feed what has been suggested here. They do fine if fed. The lighting might be an issue, especially if the RBTA goes the way of GBTA.

Good luck.