GBTA Bleached and not eating.. Help please!

[MissNano]

Ok, so it is official my GBTA is bleached. I think it happened from when i had to do a massive water change and my salt level dropped pretty bad. I am in the process of raising it daily, but slowly. However my GBTA is not eating at all. Also when the lights are on he looks pretty miserable. However at night he bubbles all out and looks so happy, not sure what that is. An Anyways, back on track, what i really need to know is how to care for it? Any advice would be greatly appreciated, cause i cant get him to eat and im not sure what care it needs to get back to perfect health.. As of right now he does looks like he could make a full recovery if i knew what i was doing...lol ..thanks guys!!

 

[DustinB]

What size tank is it? How did your salt level drop from a water change? How low are we talking about?

Stop trying to feed him until your water is pristine and he has a week after that to recover a bit.

From what I've read, a bleached anemone can take up to a year or more to regenerate it's zooxanthellae. If it is bleached, once it recovers a bit you will have to keep absolute pristine water conditions and feed it a few times a week. It will not be able to generate it's own food from light for a long time.

Do you have a picture?

 

[MissNano]

Hey Dustin, thanks for the reply. He is currently in a 12g right now. While my 55g is cycling. I am not sure what i did but adding my water i guess i ddint mix my enough salt into the water change. So it dropped, the reason for the massive water change was i couldnt get my nitrates and ammonia to level out. It seems to be better now, hope i can keep it that way. Here is a pic of it now. Oh and my salt dropped to about 1.018 and 1.016 it is now at 1.019, so i am getting it up some... I havent got my anemone to eat for about two weeks now, what should i do?

 

[gac2133]

I would get some trace elements and add back in to your water also to start with and make sure to turn off your filtration for at least 15 minutes when you add trace but if you have extra air pump place a air stone on it and get some more O2 in the tank while the filtration is off also and last of all I would feed it some Liquid food with a shringe direct at it when it was open at night with out lites if needed after you get the salinity back to normal if he starts opening up more i would give it a small piece of silverside if he dont eat it make sure to take it out of the tank after 15 min. good luck

 

[DustinB]

My guess would be to keep an eye on it and get it out of there when it dies, especially if you have anything else in the tank that you don't want to die along with it. Never introduce an anemone into a tank that is not very stable. Your tank should never show any ammonia unless something large died and got left in there. Sounds like your 12g never had a chance to end up completely cycled, or you added a large number of inhabitants and caused a spike,

On the off-chance it does survive, you can try to get the salt level up about .001 per day until you reach 1.025. Are you using a properly calibrated refractometer to measure salinity? When it get's there you have to be diligent with keeping evaporation topped off.

With a small tank things happen very fast. Your salinity can be thrown off a fair amount just from evap. You need weekly water changes, stable temps, etc... Overall a stable tank with great parameters. Of course I'm sure you know the tank is too small, which is why you have the 55g cycling. However your small tank isn't stable either.

Don't take offense to this, but you really need to do a lot more research and get some more experience at keeping stable tanks before you go buying finicky animals that require perfect/near perfect/stable conditions.

Work on getting the salinity up, do your weekly 20% water changes, keep everything stable, and leave it alone. When you do your water changes make sure you let the water sit overnight after mixing, make sure the pH matches the tank, and make sure temp is the same. Try to avoid shocking the anemone with anything anymore.

I highly doubt it will survive, but try what was suggested and see what happens. If it starts to improve in a week or 2 try feeding it some frozen mysis or a silverside.

Good luck.

 

[DustinB]

I would get some trace elements and add back in to your water also to start with and make sure to turn off your filtration for at least 15 minutes when you add trace but if you have extra air pump place a air stone on it and get some more O2 in the tank while the filtration is off also and last of all I would feed it some Liquid food with a shringe direct at it when it was open at night with out lites if needed after you get the salinity back to normal if he starts opening up more i would give it a small piece of silverside if he dont eat it make sure to take it out of the tank after 15 min. good luck

I wouldn't add an air stone or any "trace elements" to the tank. You don't want to shock the anemone anymore with a pH swing. Just keep bringing the salinity up a point (.001) or two a day. This will bring everything back in line including your "trace elements".

 

[MissNano]

Well i thought my little tank would be fine till i get my big tank fully ready for him. My little tank has been up almost 7 months, he did just fine for a while. He seems to be doing well, he i just not eating and is bleached. Cause he is not closed up all the way unless he poops.. not sure how he poops without me feeding him though lol. Guess we will see if he survives... i will let ya guys know in a couple of weeks

 

[bues0022]

What is the recommended rate for bringing up salinity after a drop? I've gone from 1.020 to 1.026 in about 1 hour. (auto top-off problem) My haddoni made it though apparently unscathed - though I admittedly couldn't really tell how stressed it was. I figured forced rapid salinity normalization was better than days below optimal. I've seen the 0.001 per day idea, where does it come from? Did I just get really lucky? I guess I don't know what is harder on the nems, low salinity or forced change. Thoughts?

 

[Ben_Im]

What is the recommended rate for bringing up salinity after a drop? I've gone from 1.020 to 1.026 in about 1 hour. (auto top-off problem) My haddoni made it though apparently unscathed - though I admittedly couldn't really tell how stressed it was. I figured forced rapid salinity normalization was better than days below optimal. I've seen the 0.001 per day idea, where does it come from? Did I just get really lucky? I guess I don't know what is harder on the nems, low salinity or forced change. Thoughts?

I honestly think that .001 per day came out of nowhere. Aren't there pretty substantial salinity swings in the wild (especially shores) as waves come pretty intermittently?

 

[DustinB]

From what I've read most things are far more tolerant of drops in salinity than rises. I don't know where the .001 came from, just what I've seen recommended by some very knowledgeable people.

The main thing I'm suggesting is subtle changes to avoid any further shock. The last thing you want for an animal on the edge of death is shock. Any large change too quickly will shock it. Anemones are far more sensitive to conditions than fish.

Just bring the salinity up a point or two a day, once at 1.025 keep it steady by being diligent with your evaporation topoffs. Keep up the weekly water changes with perfectly matching water.

Basically get everything stable and hope for the best. You have a long road ahead of you if it does survive. Keep us updated. :thumbsup:

 

[bues0022]

From what I've read most things are far more tolerant of drops in salinity than rises.

I didn't realize that. Thanks.