GBTA Closes and "Poops" almost daily

[eastfernstreet]

I have a GBTA in a 6-month old tank and have had him for almost three months. He has been hosting a pair of young, black o. clowns for a few weeks now. He is bright green, about 6-8 inches across and, after a few initial wanderings on the rocks quickly settled into a mid-level, upside-down berth in the front of the tank.

He is not "bubbled" but his tentacles are stout, he eats a little krill every couple of weeks and seems generally quite happy.

Question: How worried should I be that every couple of days he closes up and poops out a bunch of brown, stringy matter? He's not bleaching and, as I said, he's happy the rest of the day. (It's this brown stuff that attracted the clowns in the first place.) Is this normal?

(If you want to yell at me for having an anemone in a young tank, feel free, but it's really water under the bridge.)

 

[igarc009]

My nems are always pooping as well. The more you feed the more they poop. As for the young tank I think six months is more than enough time. I waited a month before I through in Nems into my small nem tank and none have died been over a year.

 

[elegance coral]

The brown stuff isn't "poop". It's zooxanthellae. If the anemone is discharging zooxanthellae that often, it's either bleaching, or the nutrient level of the system is to high causing rapid reproduction of zooxanthellae. You say the anemone isn't bleaching, so if you clean up the system, this behavior should stop.

Peace
EC

 

[eastfernstreet]

@elegance

Thanks. (I was using poop as a descriptive but am grateful for the nutrient info.) I had read that "sick" and "bleaching" anemones would lose their photosynthetic cells but hadn't managed to learn about excess nutrients being a potential cause.

I'll see if that isn't perhaps at the root of the issue (no pun intended).

Thanks!