BTA dropping tentacles

[Aquaman101]

I noticed a few of my bta's tentacles are shriveled near it's body and it appears a couple have dropped of.

It's always fully extended and exposed to the light.

Is this a regular activity or something I should be concerned with? There are no clowns hosting it that would be causing the damage.

I catches a few mysis shrimp when I feed that tank and there are 6-T5HO bulbs putting out 354 watts.

Do I need to feed it more?

 

[jestr]

Maybe to much flow?? The only nem I saw losing tentacles was dieing I had.. run carbon and get us some pics

 

[Aquaman101]

Maybe to much flow?? The only nem I saw losing tentacles was dieing I had.. run carbon and get us some pics

I run carbon 24/7. It seems to like the flow it's in. It's not to strong and it's been settled in the spot for a couple months now.

 

[BonsaiNut]

Need a photo. Dropping tentacles can be caused by many things.

 

[Aquaman101]

I finally got a picture of my bta dropping tentacles.

You can see in the picture within the left circle, the bta's tentacle becomes constricted and eventually falls off. The circle on the right is what is left after the tentacle falls off. A little stump is left that I hope will regenerate.

All my parameters are fine.
s.g. = 1.026
Phos = 0
Nitrate = 0
Nitrate = 0
Calcium = 400

I run a 6 x 54 watt T5HO light system.

I feed it a chunk of raw shrimp ever other day and it 's tentacles remain sticky. It has been attached to the rock it's on now for a couple months.

Any ideas?

 

[holmstar]

Have you actually seen the dropped tentacles detached from the anemone?

 

[Aquaman101]

Have you actually seen the dropped tentacles detached from the anemone?

Yeah, I see little neon green strings laying on the sandbed.

 

[socalsalttank]

I think it probably retracted not dropped.

 

[Habu]

My RBTA did this for a while and know he looks great again. It is a very large one and thought maybe it was going to split but it never did. Hope yours goes well.

 

[Silfer]

my green BTA is doing this too, I keep finding deflated tentacles on the sand/stuck in powerheads (covered up due to nems so stuff gets stuck in them easy).. yet the anemone is open and happy. It does have 2 clowns hosting it, one 4.5" female cinnamon and one 1.5" male cinnamon.

 

[sjwitt]

I had the same thing happen to my condylactis. Removed ALL hermit crabs from the tank and no severed tentacles since. I would suggest you look for a predator.

 

[Aquaman101]

I still can't figure out why my BTA is dropping tentacles. It still drops one every few days.

It's open and readily accepts raw shrimp. I just tested my water and the only thing questioanable was the Alk. It was at 7.

I do have a frogspawn that is upstream from the BTA. Any chance the frogspawn is stinging it?

 

[sjwitt]

Do you think there could be an 'unknown' predator lurking somewhere in the tank? If your list of inmates is complete, I don't see anything in there that would be of concern. Like I said, when I removed ALL hermit crabs, my 'severed tentacle' issue ceased.

 

[Anemone]

It may well be the clown(s). Watch for them biting at the tentacle tips. Not just the "nip and suck" activity, but bite, rip off and spit out. My GSMs have occasionally done this - generally the female. Doesn't seem to do any long-lasting damage to the anemones.

Kevin

 

[syrinx]

It may well be the clown(s). Watch for them biting at the tentacle tips. Not just the "nip and suck" activity, but bite, rip off and spit out. My GSMs have occasionally done this - generally the female. Doesn't seem to do any long-lasting damage to the anemones.

Kevin

Very common for clowns to do- I agree. With the maroons being perhaps the worst about. I also have seen no permenant damage done-but a couple of times it may have been imminent- so I removed the clowns/anemone. But this poster has no clowns