Help with new RBTA!

[sandgoby]

I recently purchased a RBTA from my LFS. It looked great in the LFS's tank but wasn't very expanded. Got it home and I placed it in my frag tank as I wanted to coax it to move from the huge rock it came on (I haven't tried this yet). Well I purchased a pair of Tomato clowns for it and they jumped right into it when I dropped them into the tank. Great so far, that is until I went to feed the BTA today. As it opened up I saw some of it's tentacles I hadn't seen before. It looks like they are mutilated! Can anyone comment on this, and if it will correct it's self? I am totally freaked out.

Thanks
S

 

[Anemone]

Well, a couple of things. RBTAs can "pull back" their tentacles over time - either as a result of starvation or even irritation. That might be what's happening, but I think it's probably more likely that your clowns are nipping/ripping at the tentacles. They do this from time to time, and generally it doesn't cause any long-term damage to the anemone (other than some ugly tentacles ).

Kevin

 

[sandgoby]

Kevin,
Thanks for the reply, over the course of the evening it's looking worse. It fed no problem (raw shrimp). Several hours later all the tentacles shrunk and now it's folded over. Is this something I should be worried about? Is there anything I can do?