BTA lost all of its tentacles

Dkuhlmann

Dkuhlmann

New member
Has anyone seen a BTA lose all of it's tentacles? I mean all it is now is a disc with a mouth and foot. The other day about a third were missing, I actually figured it was going to split, but it didn't. Then this morning all of the tentacles are gone. I can't get a picture of it because it's in the back of the tank behind a rock but I can see it, just don't think a picture will come out. My other one is totally fine. I've never even heard of this hopefully someone has an idea of what happened.

You know the same thing happened to a frogspawn that I have, one day all of the tentacles were just gone. They're starting to grow back but it's just the strangest thing.

I have recently gotten a new light and did fry my acans and lost half of them. The rest of the tank is doing fine now with one other exception my biggest frogspawn doesn't have any polyp extension. They're all there but don't extend. All of my other Euphyllia's are just like normal.

Any ideas? Yes water params are within range, nothing out of wack.
 
63 views and nobody has any thoughts? I know I don't but if anything comes to mind please post it.

This morning when the lights first came on it was extended up off the rock, but as soon as I got my phone ready to take a picture it was back flat against the rock. :hammer:

What's sad is I don't have any idea how I can feed it with no tentacles. Sure it doesn't need food but would be nice to give it some. Might try holding some food with a tweezers against it's mouth and see if it can close up around it.
 
Shot in the dark, don't know much about anemones but is there any chance of something nipping at the tentacles? Only ask because of the frogspawn.
 
I remember a thread in the past of a guy who had two bta that he got fr a friend that were in the same situation. They were getting too much light in his friends tank and were getting fried. If I recall he put them in his tank in lower light area and they recovered. I'll try to dig the thread up but give a search see if you can find it as well.
 
As for something nipping the tentacles I doubt it or else the other one would be the same and it's fine.

Ya I remember reading that thread now that you posted it. I did notice yesterday that my lights seemed to be too bright so I lowered the whites some but I only had them on 20, now down to 15 and upped the blues to 55. You would think if the anemone was getting too much light that it would move, but neither one did. The one that is in good shape yesterday had very skinny tentacles and never expanded until the whites went off. So I'm thinking it was too much light, but again you would think they would hide from too much light.

Well we'll see how this goes. There are actually 5 tentacles left on it all in one small area on the rim of it's disc.

I just find it very strange that the anemone did the same thing the frogspawn did by losing all of it's tentacles but kept the main part of the body intact.
 
The few times i've seen this in my tank

1) too much light. Or bta sick. Bta expell zoo on a daily basis and it loses tentacles first.. then it loses stickness and die.
2) crab or invasive hermits chopping tentacles to eat. Seen pepperminy shrimp and coral bandit shrimp do the same..
 
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I am going through this pain as well. I had a lovely GBTA which shrivelled up into the size of a raisin and vanished. My RBTA has also declined since I got him a couple of months ago. I spot feed twice a week or less.

Initially, I put the GBTA loss down to a rogue crab that I have, tried to catch it using the tumbler glass and food trap method, failed. But now that my RBTA has a Porcelain Crab protecting it, I'm not so sure about the rogue crab.

With my tank, the only thing I can come up with at the moment is my use of NOPOX. My Nitrates are zero, clear fluid on the test. I have come to this conclusion because the Zoas I have aren't really growing much either and I've had them for months. Research tells me that some Nitrates are OK, <=10ppm and are useful for Zooxanthellae growth. Maybe my use of carbon dosing is a contributing factor.

Yesterday I stopped carbon dosing. I would have thought if it were a light issue then the nem would just move, my RBTA has stayed fixed to the spot, but he just deflates most of the time. It may also be the Porcelain Crab or the 9 Sexy Shrimps bothering it. Sigh.
 
Had two do this, One is gone and the other is on it way out. System is stable with zero nitrate and zero nitrite also a ATO running on Apex, so no major swings. Been reading for a few weeks trying to figure out what's going on but No luck.
 
Bta aren't the brightest. Well I mean no anemone has a brain but BTA seem to be the dumbest. I've seen plenty sit and get blasted to death by light. Maybe they didn't have energy to move or maybe they just didn't know what to do and rode it out.
 
I had a BTA do this, shrank up and all the tentacles fell off, I didn't see it for a week and thought it was dead and gone. Nope, it reappeared and is recovering, slowly getting tentacles back and looking much healthier, although it is much smaller.
 
Here are my thoughts with all of the new replies, and I thank you for them.

I'm actually thinking it was due to the lighting but still not 100% sure

I don't have any crabs or shrimp only have one scarlet hermit and he's never by the anemone that has this going on.

I did recently use NoPox a few weeks ago but also about the same time that I got the new light. If it was due to the NoPox I would think both anemones would be affected not just the one. Around the same time I also treated Prazi to the tank. so there were several things going on at once basically. But I still go back to the fact that I have two BTA's and one is fine.

Neither is expelling zoo. My nitrates and phosphates are absolutely ZERO after using the NoPox. Yes corals need some nitrates and phosphates and this might explain why my frogspawn isn't extending it's polyps. So I am going to take my skimmer offline for a while and see if I can get the nitrates up to around 10 is and phosphates around .025 ish. I don't think that since both are 0 that would affect my BTA but it would the Euphyllia's but funny thing there is, only my one frogspawn is having issues with no polyp extension, all the other ones are perfectly fine.
 
every individual anemone is different and they react to the same water condition differently. How long have you had this anemone?

here's a picture of my anemone tank. You can see all the anemones doing great. On left side there's a flat one with no tentacles left. My water here is pretty perfect. Gigs, Haddoni, Bta, Mimic, Hellfire all doing great. However, this guy is new and I placed it directly under the Kessil. the lights fried it and it didn't move an inch. After 2-3 weeks I placed it in the shade and it's recovering..

20160308_173424_zpsxwd4n23m.jpg


how many hours do you get to monitor your tank? If tentacles are getting shorter and anemone is getting darker gradually, it must be expelling zoo. I often catch them expel in the afternoon and fully recover around 6pm.. imo, slow shorten tentacle death is often due to lighting. I think the best option is move the rock to a more shaded area.
 
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I'm having the same issue with a bta. He was doing just fine until about a couple weeks ago. Then all the sudden he started expelling zoo and tentacles started shrinking. One thing I did notice on mine was mesenterial filaments coming from the tentacles only. Not sure why this was happening? He did move to the bottom of the tank and seems to be hiding out of the light. I was feeding him every other day and had the lights up pretty bright. I was advised in a thread I posted about mine to stop the feeding and turn down the lights. Since doing this he seems to be doing better and the tentacles are starting to grow back.
 
Since I stopped carbon dosing on Monday, and after reading this, I also turned down my LED's.

The RBTA seems to be improving! He's not deflating nearly as much. I also found what looks like a dead crab and not a molt which is the rogue hitcher. Who knows. I'm now thinking maybe it was the light after all, but will keep off the carbon for a bit to see how my Zoas do as well.
 
I was also carbon dosing with vinegar at the time my bta started to go downhill. I stopped but have recently started again will no I'll effects on the bta. I know I did read a thread on vinegar dosing and bta's. It said that they may be able to use the excess acetate, that is not consumed by bacteria as a food supply. Maybe it was being over fed? I was dosing way more than iam now so I'm not 100% sure that didn't have some negative effects also.
 
Ive been carbon dosing vinegar in my anemone tank for a year with no side effects. It is a food source and bta grows darker. But it does not kill them. Dosing over 100ml a day

I need vinegar to keep nitrate <5
 
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