BTA spewing noodles?

[lildraken]

My false percs and yellow tangs caught bad case of marine velvet and i tried to treat them with "Rally" that was supposed to be reef safe--- well, I found out the hard way that it's NOT reef safe! anyway, it stained my BTA and sand sifting sea star a yellowish color.
My BTA now always has his "lips" swollen and his tentacles are now short and stubby. the always has these tiny white noodle-looking things (perhaps mucus) spewing out of some of his tentacles and collecting in clumps on the disc. Sometimes i see the mouth swelling up and it looks like he's eating it up. those squiggles look like the same squiggles that come out of the mushroom coral when they get damaged. perhaps my BTA is in chemical warfar with the shroom coral and he's mucusing up? I have a uv sterilizer, isn't that supposed to reduce chemical warfare?
someone help! He won't eat pieces of fish or shrimp so tomorrow i'll try to buy some phytoplankton for him.
the water parameters are ideal and they are under 192 watt PC.

 

[SuperNerd]

Phytoplankton? I didn't think anemones actually ingested phytoplankton.

 

[lildraken]

BTA's and phytoplankton

BTA's and phytoplankton

yeah I didn't think they did either! but this is my first BTA so I don't know what else to do. The guy at the LFS said that might help (but i didn't believe him at the time). If he's eating up what he collects in his mucus then i'm sure plankton will add nutrients to it. he's got to eat right? any suggestions?

 

[SuperNerd]

I wouldn't think it would eat if it's irritated. Have you done a water change, or water changes, to help get rid of the chemicals you added that irritated it?

 

[SuperNerd]

Also check out Karen's site on rose anemone care. http://www.karensroseanemones.com

 

[lildraken]

yeah i did a 20% water change last week and this week i will do 20% more. The xenia coral seem to be doing well and i've heard these are good "barometers" for good water chemistry.
Does anyone know what those white squiggley things that look like tiny noodles are? It looks like they seep out of the tentacles and collect on the disk.
I checked out Karens Rose Anemone website. It's great but it didn't help me for i guess mine is sick and she pretty much talks about healthy anemones. At least my anemone's mouth isn't gaping open like so that's a good sign.

 

[SuperNerd]

It does mention the "white stringy noodles" as something related to the anemone dying. Yours may not be there yet, if you remedy the situation in time.

Like I said earlier it is probably still irritated. I believe some anemones expel their guts when they feel under attack from something...and it doesn't have to be something you can see.

Xenia thrive in waters that are more nutrient rich, they don't really indicate whether your water is "perfect or bad"...they just grow more and favor water that has more nutrients.

Please keep doing water changes until it starts to look better but also remember to monitor your paramters as you do so.
Exactly what are your water parameters btw?

 

[SuperNerd]

Btw how is the starfish doing?

 

[jeffbrig]

I would recommend a series of MASSIVE water changes (30g+ each) and running lots of carbon to get any residual medicine out of your reef - it sounds like it is toxic to your BTA. Don't worry about trying to feed it right now, you need to fix the underlying problem and hope that it can recover. Don't waste your time (and sacrifice water quality) by dosing phytoplankton either, the BTA is not a filter feeder.

 

[lildraken]

Thanks guys for your help!
my water parameters are
at 75 deg
salinity .023
pH 8.3
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
ammonia-- the color is between 0 and 0.25 ppm
calcium 400

I also have a test kit by Sea Chem. It's pretty hard to decifer because the colors show up so light. Does anyone know of a good test kit for iodine, phosphates, and silicates? or do these not really affect BTA's?
I'm kinda unsure of the color match, but:
iodine less than .02
silicate close to 0
phosphates between .1 and .2

 

[lildraken]

oh, the starfish is doing fine. except for the yellowish color.

 

[SuperNerd]

I've been using aquarium pharmaceuticals master test kit for ammonia and nitrates. I like Salifert test kits for everything else.

Btw what is your alkalinity reading?

 

[lildraken]

Alkalinity is one test I don't have...I'll have to go get one tomorrow. I need to get a part time job to finance this hobby! LOL

 

[SuperNerd]

:lol: