GBTA problems

[Mazzy]

My once beautiful little nem is, I believe, dying a slow death, and I don't know what to do for him or what's causing it.

He was perfect and puffed up and bubbly until I fed him a piece of shrimp from the grocery store. Within a day of that his tentacles got stringy, I started seeing his innards (as seen in this pic), and he started extruding what ever the little purple tips on the ends of the tentacles are called. He's still doing that, and the purple 'dots' are almost gone at this point and it makes it appear as if holes are left where those specks of purple used to be (so holes in the tip s of his tentacles). His foot is starting to look raggedy and pale right around the disk too.

Params are good. They've been good. They continue to be good.
Nitrate >5ppm
pH 8.3
Alk 11dKh
phosphates undetectable
salinity 1.026 constantly

I'm at a loss. While I don't believe a single bad piece of food could do all this, that is when it started so that's really all I have to go on as a starting point. I'm grasping at straws at this point to figure out what to "fix". I'm a smoker so I guess I'll smoke outside ~shrug~ because at this point I jsut can't figure anything else to do for him.

If anyone has any suggestions they would be greatly appreciated. Or even any explanations at this point would be helpful.



PS - his foot, which used to be completely under the rock he's on, is now on top of the rock so he obviously isn't holding as strongly as he was before either.

 

[nemmy]

Nems are weird. Give it some time he may just be getting ready to expell waste. If you see it starting to disolve and its breaking apart like a pile of pudding remove it ASAP.

 

[Mazzy]

Nah, he's been like this. He tightens up a little bit after the lights have been on a while but otherwise, he's always with the innards showing and/or the gaping mouth. I may just hit him with daily water changes for a while and see if that does anything at all. I just saw when looking him over good with a flashlight so I could see under and around all of him, that his foot has a small splotch on it that isn't right. I don't know what it is, but it's discolored (a darker rather than lighter color) and it looks like a wound that has abscessed if I had to describe it, except it's still very small. I did catch a snail right at the foot yesterday (and that snail has been right at the foot before and I've knocked him away) so maybe he did some damage?? But as far as the way the nem looks, that's constant, not just right this minute and I haven't fed him for a week.

 

[nemmy]

Yeah just ride it out. Until he decomposes don't worry. I had one shipped to me that the water busted out of and he was air exposed. Took a bit but recovered.

Just keep an eye on him multiple times a day until it looks like he's falling apart or improving. Looks to early to call him a goner.

 

[Mazzy]

I relaly hope he's not a goner. But right this minute, and for the first time ever since I've had him, he is releasing from his rock entirely. He's barely attached right now and I have nets around him to catch him when he fully releases (which should be any minute now )

 

[Mazzy]

Well, he let go of his rock, stayed completely squished up into nothing, and when he traveled to the other side of the tank (heading toward the back - where I couldn't have gotten him if he died there) I grabbed him and put him in a net. It wasn't hard to massage his foot and get him off the rock he was on as he was barely attached even then. I was worried being so weak that he would eventually get sucked up into the MP10 (which he was on the rock work almost directly under) so I made a little nem nursery for him. Even if he doesn't make it at least this will be easier to get him out of the tank. And if he does make it this will keep the sexy shrimp from relentlessly pestering him as they do, along with the single snail that for whatever reason, I have had to knock off of the exposed bit of his foot twice now (the first time when he was still in good shape!) so maybe he can fight whatever ails him.
He is opening up for the first time all day, though his innards are still exposed so not at all doing well, just looking slightly better than earlier (he also released all kinds of his ... is it mesentaries??.. the purple coloration at the tips of his tentacles; it looked like he was covered in purple worms for a while ). Hopefully being left alone will help him out. I'll do another WC tomorrow just for kicks; maybe he'll like that.

 

[Mazzy]

PS - random - I really wish you could edit these posts so I could make these pics smaller.

 

[sh0ck]

There is "preview" possible before you post to check images etc.
I would probably try that cipro from stickies, but it does not have to be easy to get.
Hard to say how nem looks when there is just 1 photo and that from far far away.

 

[Mazzy]

Right. And I'm not gonna mess with him anymore/take him out of the bag just to get a pic, and the camera, when close up, just focuses on the mesh of the bag so he still is hard to view in a pic. All I can tell you is that his mouth is gaping, and his disk is basically just all his insides showing. I moved that first pic which is why you can't see it anymore, but here it is below. This is how he looked all day; about the size of a quarter he was so squished up - if that big. Now he is extending his tentacles - a little - but mouth is still agape and innards are still completely exposed just like this pic of him earlier. He apparently lost much of his zooxanthellae as his tentacles are now only green on the very tips and are otherwise dark.