bta help asap!

[greg1786]

i have had a green bta for about a month now. he's been doing well until about 3 days ago. his tentacles had literally disappeared but his body was still inflated. when i got up today he was mostly deflated and drooping off the liverock nearly down to the sandbed . i decided to see if something was wrong with the light fixture because the water params were all good. so i drove 2 hrs from home to that fish place in pa w my light to get some good advice. i was in for a huge shock. the fixture that i had bought from a lfs in my are was by coral life and the guy who sold it to me said it was t5 ho perfect for anemone and coral. well it turns out it was a t5 however it was not ho!!!! the fishroom supervisor helped me pick out a dual t5 ho lamp by zoomed with a 54w 10000k daylight and an actinic blue 54w. i installed it and over the past 6 hrs the nem has gotten some color back and inflated a bit but still no tentacles . is it possible he will bounce back a rejuvinate with the proper lighting now installed or is it too late ?:-(


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[BayouCorals]

It is not too late for the BTA. I don't know if two T5 bulbs with one of them actinic is what I would recommend for a BTA. I would have recommended more bulbs if using T5. I would try to feed it some thing like mysis or krill to help it recover. Usually when a BTA is about to die its mouth starts gapping open. Yours sounds like it is heading that way if you don't turn it around.

 

[greg1786]

thanks his mouth was opened up pretty far earlier but has been closed for several hours i will try feeding i was goin to try to feed it earlier but i figured because the tentacles weren't present it wouldn't be able to hold the food but hopefully he'll eat


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[Delta111444]

sorry i cant help....but lets hope for the best

 

[Greg 45]

more info
old tank new tank cycled yet
parameters

 

[lanceiswaiting]

It won't be ypur lighting that caused the nem to be in that condition.

Could be any number of things. Can you post a pic of it?

BTA's are pretty tough in a stable tank, need more info as suggested above

 

[Tmoriarty]

If you say it is loosing tentacles I can only assume that it is consumming them. Nems will do this if they are not provided enough nutrients from their symbiotic algae. Basically this means that the light may have something to do with it and that the nem is more then likely consumming it self to prevent starvation.

Increase your lighting slowly over time, in a lot of tanks 2 bulbs may be enough to keep BTA's alive but you may also need some form of supplemental feeding. You will most likely see additional deflation/inflation cycles where most of the zooxanthelle are purged, the mouth being closed now doesn't mean it will not be gaping open again in a few hours or a day.

Keep an eye on it and if it will eat feed it. If the tank has been stable for a few months then focus on just trying to keep levels adequate and increase feeding until he makes a recovery. If the nem recovers it will take months to regain all of its tentacles/algae, pictures will help us as well to diagnose the problems.

Tyler

 

[greg1786]

here's what he looks like now. the tank is over a year old. the params are checked and recorded every day without exception and are as follows nitrate 10ppm....phosphate .25ppm ...salinity 32 ....specific gravity 1.024.....calcium 460....temp 80F

 

[lanceiswaiting]

It definitely looks like its starving. Is it sticky to the touch?

Your phosphate is a bit high but not a massive issue. How deep is the tank? That will have a big influence on lighting and I don't see much coraline algae.

Like others have said try feeding small mashed up foods to bring it around. Keep up the water changes and try to keep everything stable. I feed mine regularly on pieces of raw prawn (shrimp to you) and they have giant tenatacles. Good luck

 

[LAKEM0NSTER]

hey greg, I'd say if you can, get another t5ho fixture like the one you got and slowing increase the light for the anemone. Leave the new fixture on for about an hr./day and increase that to maybe 2-3 hr./day the next week, then 3-6 hr./day the following week, til you have both fixtures on for your full light schedule. (6 t5HO bulbs is probably the minimum I'd go with keeping anemones.)

Also you've got some excess nutrients in your system, doing weekly waterchanges (20%) should help get your nitrate & phosphate levels down.

I feed my RBTAs mysis once a week and they are always growing & splitting!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzfZDjcyMd4 <---a fresh split!!

 

[greg1786]

i dont know why i cant get the nitrates and phosphates to zero ive done a 10% water change every other day for the last 6 days . also i cant afford another fixture i spent all the money i had on this one and a skimmer. The anemone decided to move today:-( he has been in the exact same spot since i got him last month and now hes moved twice since last night. I did move the rock he was attatched to tho, his rock was nearly in the sandbed so i took about 15# of my liverock and built a tower and sat him at the top so he would be closer to the light fixture will that help?

 

[Ebisan]

He will move to a spot where he is happy. See if you can feed him a small piece of silverside or krill. At least it doesn't look like its melting or spilling its guts out.