BTA opinions please

[Yankees2519]

Hey all, this is my first post on this great forum and im just looking for opinions on this BTA i recently picked up. He appears healthy i think although he hasnt eaten yet, the maroon clownfish wont go outside of 5 inches from it. Im wondering if this is what its supposed to look like, ive seen pictures of others that have longer tentacles, which i wish mine had. Also ive read that if they are white that means theyre "bleached". His base is red/orange but his tentacles are very short and white. I placed him on a piece of rock and he hasnt moved but he is stuck to it. im sorry if this has been covered a million times my search feature hasnt been working all day

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[garygb]

Yeah, it's bleached. It looks very contracted as well. That could be that the clownfish is irritating it. It would probably be to the advantage of the anemone to separate them until the anemone is settled in, expanded, and eating well. What kind of lighting and water parameters do you have?

 

[Yankees2519]

i bought them as a pair, so the clownfish has been hosting it. in the fish store it looked the same and i was told it wasnt in good lighting and that it will get larger and fuller once in good lighting. as for my tank, its a 75g with 75lbs live rock, lighting is 260w compact fluorescent. I have a protein skimmer, and i just finished testing the water

1.023 salinity
8.0 pH
0 ppm nitrate
0 ppm nitrite
0 ppm ammonia
water is 78*f

I hope thats what you meant by parameters

 

[Yankees2519]

Well i just checked on him again and he looks worse (to me). He seems like he is more stretched out, and getting blown around in the current more. before (check pic in first post) he seemed more firm and now he seems to be stretching out, and it looks as if some of his tentacles (circled) are tearing. The first picture was taken either last night or this morning i cant remember, this picture was just taken now (lights out). Please tell me my anemone isnt dying already!!

 

[Jamie1210]

Your anemone isn't dying, but it's in pretty bad shape. 260 watts of PC over a 75 gallon tank, huh? It'll do, since BTAs are one of the lesser light requiring 'nems out there, but ideally, it should be more, especially if some of those bulbs are actinics.

Your anemone is super bleached, and bc its tentacles appear to be so short and far apart from each other (maybe it just looks that way in the photo?), it looks like it's starving too. What I would do is follow what someone here suggested, take out that clown or use a strawberry basket to seperate the two, otherwise, that clown's just gonna irritate it. It's going to be awhile before it regains its color/form, but I would leave the clown out for that long period of time.

Feed it, definitely! It doesn't have its photosynthetic zooxanthellae anymore, so you will need to provide it w/food. Small bits of silverside or shrimp or squid every other day should do the trick.

Good luck!

 

[garygb]

As Jamie said, if you have actinic, it shouldn't count toward your wattage as it is basically useless for an anemone like yours. If you can get the anemone in the top 10 inches of the water, that would help. Also, you want the light bulbs to be no older than say 9 months or so. Ideally, you would have all daylight bulbs (say 6700K or 10000K). Also, as Jamie said, it doesn't look like it is dying. It will take a while to acclimate, but the odds are good that you can bring it back to full health. Everything looks good, but I would bring the specific gravity up from 1.023 (ok for fish, but not long-term form anemones) to 1.026. You can do this by simply replacing evaporated water with freshly mixed salt water.

 

[kindafun]

I agree, it probably needs to be protected from the clown. As for light in may need to be put up high in the tank to get more light or may just need to get acclimated and find it's own "happy place".

 

[crpeck]

Ocean Nutrtion makes a VHP (very high protein) formula of frozen food that my BTA loves.

I'd also get some Omega 3, HUFA or Selcon type stuff to soak silversides in.

That anemone needs a boost and some fortified supplements in his food may not help, but it can't hurt.

Jamie1210 - Actinics are useless? I hadn't heard that. I figured they are of less value than the white, but thought that there is still wattage value for the lights.

I have been very successful with a RBTA for 4 years now with 4 x 96 watts over a 55 gallon. 1 6700K, 1 10,000K, 1 420 actinic and 1 460 actinic. The anemone is high in the tank, but has grown very large.

Good Luck Yankees2519! If you can get it to eat, hopefully you can turn it around.

 

[Yankees2519]

thank you everyone for your replies, im going to seperate the clown from the anemone as recommended and ill try feeding the anemone again also. he didnt eat silversides when i tried feeding him yesterday

 

[MarinaP]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11874080#post11874080 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Yankees2519
it looks as if some of his tentacles (circled) are tearing.

Of course they are. His tentacles are being sucked into the intake. Move your anemone away from the intake.

 

[Yankees2519]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11876272#post11876272 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MarinaP
Of course they are. His tentacles are being sucked into the intake. Move your anemone away from the intake.

he's a pretty good distance from the intake of the filter, and he definately isnt getting sucked by it at all

 

[Jamie1210]

Jamie1210 - Actinics are useless? I hadn't heard that. I figured they are of less value than the white, but thought that there is still wattage value for the lights.

Crpeck, I never said that actinics are useless, as I really am no expert! But from what I've heard, (and this is only going by word of mouth and my own judgement), I don't think actinics really "count" a whole lot, only because they appear to be so much dimmer than 10K's.

I use solely actinics as moonlights on my tank, and the corals completely go into sleep mode, hence my opinion that actinics don't count for much ... but whether or not they're actually useless, maybe someone else can chime in based on their experience?

 

[garygb]

I think I am the one that posted that actinics are useless, which is true for shallow water animals. Some people like the aesthetic value, but that's about all they are good for in the case of host anemones.

 

[crpeck]

I'll try to find the studies I read back when I was figuring out what anemone I could keep, but I remember reading that anemones prefer a broad spectrum of lighting and that a balance of white and actinic spectrum was important to the longevity of anemones in tanks. I'm pretty sure one of the studies was discussed by Joyce Wilkerson.

The 6700 - 14,000 spectrum white light does give the most bang, but the fullest spectrum, including actinic, is the closest to nature and photosynthetic creatures like anemones do benefit from actinic lighting. Not only that, but the flourescent colors really POP from actinics. I have one tank with MH and one with PCs/actinic and there are some corals and creatures that just look better under lighting with some actinic than just all white daylight.

I honestly don't know either. So I'd love it if an expert chimed in here.

Those who have been around for a while are probably sick of my favorite anemone pic, but I still love it so will find it and post.

 

[crpeck]

Okay ... here is my anemone under PCs

 

[garygb]

Very nice pic. I base what I say from Anthony Calfo and Bob Fenner, WetWebMedia. BTW, daylight does have the range, actinic is just one specific wavelength.

 

[garygb]

I found that thread on WWM that I was talking about. Here you can read all about actinics (aesthetically of value, otherwise useless):

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/marine/setup/lighting/actinicfaqs.htm

 

[crpeck]

They would know. Thanks for the link. I have exactly some of the lights they're discussing there, the Current USA dual daylights and dual actinics. I like the way they look and balance the colors.

Glad my anemone didn't read that, though.... I'd better not tell him he should have more light than he's getting.

 

[garygb]

lol. Yeah, if they read all the stuff we say about their requirements, they would be very confused. It seems you can get 10 different opinions about almost any topic in this hobby.

 

[Yankees2519]

just a quick update my anemone seems to be doing better, his tentacles are growing and he is speading out over the rock a bit more. i added another light i had lying around, and im planning on doing some aquascaping keeping him towards the top of the tank. I tried feeding him a couple days ago and he didnt eat. It was interesting to see the interaction between the clownfish and the anemone, i placed a silverside inside the anemone and he wasnt taking it and eventually it was blown out from the current, the clownfish immediately grabbed the food and placed it back inside the anemone. eventually i think the clownfish got sick of waiting for him to eat and pushed the food out of the anemone and reclaimed his spot. im gonna try to feed him again today.