GBTA Splitting

M

mattyg18

New member
Hey guys...I got a GBTA about 3 months ago from a fellow RC'r. He seemed to be doing great and then about 2 weeks later he split. I though that was cool now that I had two. He split again about 3 weeks later and thats when I got concerned. Just noticed he split again today so now i've got 4. I feed them twice a week usually mysis shrimp and sometimes blood worms. All of them are hanging out at the top of my tank in the same area. I have a 60 gal cube.

Parameters are:

Salinity 1.026
PH 8
Alk 8.9
Ca 480
Mg 1500

Stock includes 2 clowns, blenny, goby, banjai cardinal and a bunch of corals which all doing well. The tank is about 9 months old now and lots of purple coraline.

I think my parameters are good and they've been pretty stable so i'm not sure whats going on.

One GBTA would have been cool but 4 is a little too much and at this rate i'll have a lot more very soon.

Does anyone have any thoughts??

Thanks in advance.
 
BTA splitting is a good thing, it likes your water and tank.

Sell them off at the LFS. If you are getting them that quick you could make some serious cash on here and at the LFS selling them cheap.
 
they can also split due to stress but sounds like yours are healthy and your water is fine. you can slow down the splitting by not feeding, they don't need to be fed at all, lighting and good water quality is all they really need.

good luck
 
you can also cut back on the feeding a little. i dont feed mine at all anymore. It might get some food from my clowns or the current when i feed the tank. I used to feed mine once a week, but was tired of it splitting,
plus its hard to sell them, because cant get them off the rocks
 
GBTA Pic

GBTA Pic

I thought it was bad if they split that often. Read that they could be stressed out. Glad to hear that may not be the case now. I would love to sell them however I have no clue how to remove them from the rock without damaging them.

Any suggestions??

Attached is pic that I just took now. Tank is getting dark because its almost bedtime.
 

Attachments

  • bta.jpg
    bta.jpg
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to remove them point a powerful powerhead at their foot for a while and sometimes they will let go, another way is to rub an icecube around the foot ( do not leave the icecube in one place for long). other ways is to gently pry the foot off with a old credit card but I don't suggest using this way as you may end up tearing the foot.
 
sometimes i just put another littler piece of rock next to the gbta and it will spilt onto it. worked a few times for me when i wanted to give them to friends .
 
I always just tickled the foot if you have direct access to it. They'll let right go. But my long tentacle has his foot in a hole so nothing can get to it.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
 
So if/when it does eventually let go can I just grab it and put in in a bag? Or should I try to get it to re-attach to a smaller piece of rock?
 
So since I started this thread a few weeks back I had two more splits which now leaves me with 6 GBTA's. My parameters are exactly the same as the initial post. Everything else in the tank is doing well and growing. The GBTA's look healthy. I haven't even attempted to remove any but at this rate I need to do something. I'm just concerned that they will never grow out and just keep splitting.

Thoughts.....
 
Take them out! GBTAs are voracious little beasts that can quickly get out of hand if not cut back hard on a regular basis. Grab them from underneath the foot. I'd definitely be concerned about them eating your fish!
 
I suggest to reduce to n=1, and continue to remove each cloned animal once it is splitting again.

From my experience GBAs will NOT eat healthy fish,
BUT they occupy a too big area in your tank. As other animals also: if there is enough food and they see a chance to build a monoculture .... they will do it ;)

Another method of loosening that is working well for animals where you have access in your tank: Take a SOFT toothbrush and start messaging here foot with the bristles starting "from rock to nem". Be gentle, it will steadily loosen its feet itself if you do that.
 
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