BTA never "Happy" over past 1 1/2 months.

xCry0x

xCry0x

Active member
So my 25g has been up and running for ~7 months.

~1.025 salinity
0 nitrates
temp ~78-80*
Running heavy GFO through a reactor to keep P04 down (pukani live rock leaches)
Also running ROX carbon through this reactor.
mp10 on lagoon mode ~60-70% power
25x3w LED ~60/40 blue/white w/ 60* optics about 4" off water
Not sure on the alk/ca/Mg (yea I know I need to get kits for them).
Tunze 9002 skimmer
Water changes done with red sea pro salt, I have historically done 5G changes but recently cut that back to ~2.5g (about 1/2 of the 5G bucket) and I do these weekly, especially now with the bta & fighting to keep the P04 down.
Dose 2ml vinegar daily.


Issue:

I got a 'small' RBTA I want to say about 1 month ago, it was about the size of a silver dollar at the store, bubbled up and looking great under MH lighting.

Brought it home, drip acclimated, placed it on a rock by the sand bed. Next day it was up under a rock arch, about 3-4 days later it came out and made itself at home about halfway up the rock work towards the back so it is not in the direct light beam.

It has been in that spot since and never really appears to fully open up. Sometimes it will be out slightly but the tips only are bubbled up to maybe the diameter of a pencil eraser while in the store it was bubbled up with marble sized tips. What concerns me is that the majority of the time it seems like it is deflated. I understand that they will suck in and deflate to poop but it seems like it spends too much time like this.

I feed it around twice a week with a chunk of tiger shrimp I keep in the freezer, chop of a piece, thaw it in tank water and feed with a feeder tube.

It always eats, and is slightly colored but is not as red as it was initially.

Is this just normal activity for a somewhat new/small BTA?
 
Well...there are several things I see that could be an 'issue'

1. Carbon...I have read several views on carbon, this is my experience. Run carbon only when necessary...I have found that if i use it with out really "needing" it...it does a couple things. I have seen it mess with what i believe are necessary trace elements...not to mention if not changed often, will leak phosphates into the tank.

2. When you acclimated...do you adjust it to the light?...meaning turn down light schedule a few hours and then slowly ramp up...increasing maybe 30 minutes a week until back to normal schedule. I have found that several LFS turn their lights on manually when they get into the store...which is 10-12...and turn them off when they leave. Much different than the normal light schedule.

3. Feedings...you may want to cut back...nems will typically eat...but if you overfeed...the food will just sit inside and rot..and basically kill them from the inside out. You would think they had the sense to do that...but apparently not.

4. Temperature...I have noticed that BTAs do better in slightly higher temps...i run my tank at about 82...consensus is that higher temps help them digest. ( might be a connection with several feedings)

5. Try a variety of foods...clams...silversides...even frozen mysis shrimp. I've got two nems that will not take certain foods.

Anyhow...i am no expert...but just sharing some of my personal findings in the hobby.
 
OKCchief said:
I've heard that silversides can be bad for BTAs. They can not digest the scails.
Click to expand...

If they are unhealthy their digestive system does not function properly and they can have trouble digesting the "hard parts" of a silver side.



I will give the feeding cutback a try although I was under the impression nems will regurgitate uneaten food at a later point.

Not sure I really agree with anything you said about carbon though, cannot carbon leaching P04, especially when the water goes through GFO prior to the carbon and carbon functions by 'junk' in the water filling the pores of the carbon so it just stops absorbing things. Maybe if you have saturated carbon then start tumbling it so it turns to dust you would release things back.
 
When switched from power compact to LED on a 12g aquapod the bta's withdrew and didnt fully expand until they became acclimated to the new lights. I do not run carbon, gfo and the tank is skimmerless. Every couple of weeks the tank may get a 5g water change. Two part is added when I "think" it could use some, maybe once a week. A drop of lugol's is added on occasion as well. The anemomes are rarely fed other than what they get from the ration of food offered to the clowns on a daily basis. If I do feel like feeding them nems they get a freeze dried krill. For flow there is the return pump, maxi jet 600, and a koralia 1 which barely aggitates the surface. If the water was tested right now nitrate would be through the roof and P04 would smoke the hanna checker. IME water quality has not been a big issue with keeping bubble tips.
best of luck with the nem , hope it pulls through for you
 
xCry0x said:
If they are unhealthy their digestive system does not function properly and they can have trouble digesting the "hard parts" of a silver side.



I will give the feeding cutback a try although I was under the impression nems will regurgitate uneaten food at a later point.

Not sure I really agree with anything you said about carbon though, cannot carbon leaching P04, especially when the water goes through GFO prior to the carbon and carbon functions by 'junk' in the water filling the pores of the carbon so it just stops absorbing things. Maybe if you have saturated carbon then start tumbling it so it turns to dust you would release things back.
Click to expand...

Good to know.
 
Hey man....im no expert by any means...a hobbyist like yourself...and these are the things I have tested and taken note of. I don't own the fanciest equipment so it's left to diligence and note taking on my part.

Just sharing some of my own struggles with you and what has led me to successfully keep these animals.
 
Hey man....im no expert by any means...a hobbyist like yourself...and these are the things I have tested and taken note of. I don't own the fanciest equipment so it's left to diligence and note taking on my part.

Just sharing some of my own struggles with you and what has led me to successfully keep these animals.
 
nono dont take it the wrong way I appreciate any feedback since from what I can tell what I have been doing is not working.


I don't really know what else to do. I think I am going to start systematically eliminating 'extras'.. going to start by temporarily stopping the use of kalk although my corals are going to be ****ed about that one.

If that doesnt help will try putting carbon on hold.
 
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mmasuda -- it looks like you might have been dead on with the uneaten food thing.

Reading this thread - http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1889611

and the follow on thread about treating in QT with wide spectrum antibiotics.

Looks like nems can ingest food, get sick and not be able to digest food and then the food can rot inside. This leads to a gaping open mouth while the nem tries to expell the food but is too sick to do so.

Allegedly an antibotic can help bring them back to life and allow them to spit out the rotting food.



All of this could be in line with my situation since I was feeding the nem about twice a week due to reading that small BTA need to be fed more frequently.


So I guess the follow on question is: How often do you feed if the nem will -always- accept food, hungry or not?

Thanks.
 
So I tossed my bta today, got home and it was starting to go nuclear so I sucked it up with a turkey baster and tossed it.

Wondering if getting a BTA that is too small is bad since they might be better off with the conditions that they split in until a little more mature.

The one I got was pretty small, the "small" bta's I see for sale are typically advertised as 3" across and mine was under that, the foot was probably about 1" so when fully open maybe 2".

In the store it was sitting in a plastic pasta strainer so about under 3-4" of water with a MH sitting a few feet above it .. vs in my tank it was a good 18" under water with LEDs a few inches off the water... would think the lighting would be pretty similar considering the MH were not penetrating through much water.

Everything else was stable as I intentionally waited to get the thing and made sure my params were holding stable week on week.
 
So I tossed my bta today, got home and it was starting to go nuclear so I sucked it up with a turkey baster and tossed it.

Wondering if getting a BTA that is too small is bad since they might be better off with the conditions that they split in until a little more mature.

The one I got was pretty small, the "small" bta's I see for sale are typically advertised as 3" across and mine was under that, the foot was probably about 1" so when fully open maybe 2".

In the store it was sitting in a plastic pasta strainer so about under 3-4" of water with a MH sitting a few feet above it .. vs in my tank it was a good 18" under water with LEDs a few inches off the water... would think the lighting would be pretty similar considering the MH were not penetrating through much water.

Everything else was stable as I intentionally waited to get the thing and made sure my params were holding stable week on week.
 
Sorry to hear that it didn't make it. I have had two quadricolors around that size, both rose and green, and haven't had issues with them being more delicate than larger ones. The rose was bleached when I got it and I fed it every other day with squirts of mysis. How large were the pieces you were feeding? Even my cabbage-sized anemones only get bits the size of a pencil eraser. I think anything larger than a shred the size of a PE mysis might be too much for a little BTA.

Another thing that could have been problematic is the vinegar. I don't think 2ml is a whole lot for a 25 gallon tank, but my anemones all went into decline when I started dosing vinegar. The one that I had added most recently actually died as a result before I could correct it, and the others all recovered rapidly after I stopped dosing it. You mentioned it shrinking and looking deflated all of the time, which is exactly what my anemones did.

Everything else about your tank sounds good. I'd give it another shot and try feeding smaller pieces (if you weren't already), and perhaps switch to vodka dosing instead.
 
Yea I basically have a frozen tiger shrimp I chop chunks off of to feed to my brain coral and did the same thing for the nem, eraser size is probably about right and that might have been too much.

Will also consider the vinegar, 2ml is not much, iirc I was dosing up to 10ml a day at one point but cut it back when I got the nem (over time to 2ml a day. If you are saying vinegar had that effect on your nem's that is very interesting, will have to see in Randy has any feedback on adverse effects of carbon dosing on anemones.

Thanks for the feedback, I understand losses happen but a loss when you have no idea what happened is frustrating!
 
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Yea...i only shoot some mysis at mine....nems are hard to deal with...im skeptical buying them from the LFS...only because when you get them, they are on the verge of dying anyways. IF...from the LFS..I would say get the bigger one...Best case is probably to find one from a local reefer that has been aqua cultured to the home aquarium...BTA's are faily hardy, so for yours to bite the dust so quickly tells me he was already on the way out before you purchased him.

If you give it a second go...remember what I mentioned about acclimating...it's more than just water...its the light...the flow...what it's being fed etc.
 
Yea...i only shoot some mysis at mine....nems are hard to deal with...im skeptical buying them from the LFS...only because when you get them, they are on the verge of dying anyways. IF...from the LFS..I would say get the bigger one...Best case is probably to find one from a local reefer that has been aqua cultured to the home aquarium...BTA's are faily hardy, so for yours to bite the dust so quickly tells me he was already on the way out before you purchased him.

If you give it a second go...remember what I mentioned about acclimating...it's more than just water...its the light...the flow...what it's being fed etc.
 
It doesn't seem to be carbon dosing itself, just vinegar in particular. I also looked to see if Randy had anything to say about vinegar and anemones after my experience but didn't find much; if I recall correctly he didn't have anemones or something. I did find others saying that they had had bad experiences with anemones and vinegar though, which was enough to stop my dosing. Unfortunately it was too late for the one anemone, but the others started recovering after I stopped.
 
I posted the other day, randy said he has 2 magnificas (or gigantias) I suck with nem names, but regardless he has 2 nems and he vinegar doses and it is fine.

His idea on what -could- possibly be happening is the nems have a bacterial infection, carbon dosing -could- speed up the infectious bacteria as well as denitrifying which causes the anemones immune system to lose the battle quickly.

It seems people have had success using anti biotics on nems so it could be very possible that a lot of nems pick up bacteria infections at fish stores and when introduced to a system that is dosing to put bacteria production into overdrive the infection also goes into overdrive.

Lots of emphasis on how this is just a possibility because there is no concrete evidence but I think it is a very plausible idea.

In the future if I chose to get another BTA I think I would hold off on the vinegar for a few months until the BTA is healthy and growing.

I think at this point personally I am going to stay away from anemones and just stuck with corals, although I was already tempted to get a gbta at my LFS yesterday haha.. got a pretty nice looking brain favia frag for $5.00 instead which I think was misplaced because their $5.00 coral rack was full of dead/cruddy looking coral and then this one bright pink and green frag...
 
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