LTA turning white?

M

mamastarks

New member
Ok so I have had my tank set up for about 9 months now it is a 55 gal. and and had my anemone for about 3 months. it has been doing fine eating silversides once or twice a week and only moved once. it is under a rock but expands so it gets light. I had 1 T5 ho. 1 white and 1 blue and just got another a few weeks back. when i got the anemone it was white and purple then it got darker which i thought was a good thing. but now 1/3 of it is getting lighter. is it bleaching? the new lights? I have been checking my water alot lately cause I have an slight algae problem. my water is

ph-8.0
nitrate-05
nitrite-0
salinity -1.026
cal-440
alk-11
 
Sorry im kinda confused about your lighting. How many bulbs? What wattage are they? Do they have individual reflectors? I would reccomend stop feeding silversides a lot of people here on rc have had problems with them. Try feeding a piece of krill about the size of a pencil eraser. Can you post a picture of the anemone?

also...

[welcome]
 
Ok I have 4 bulbs 2 white 2 blue 54w each, all have own reflector. I was feeding silversides cause thats waht the store was feeding. But I will feed try the krill.
012.jpg
 
Forgot to say the new lights could be the cause. How big were the pieces of silversides that you have been feeding?
 
Oh about the lights should I decrease the amout of time they are on or do I need more lighting? Because Its was doing fine and even got darker with just the one set of lights
 
They are on 12 hours but I turn the blue ones on first then an hour later the white ones turn on then I turn the white ones off two hours before the blue.

By the way thank you for the quick replies!!
 
Your welcome. Try running your lights for 7-8 hours a day. 12 Hours is too long. You can do like 8 hours blue and 6 hours with all of them.
 
FWIW, I have run my 4x39W T5's upwards of 14 hours and not noticed excessive bleaching - though I had BTA's not LTA's. Given that you did upgrade lights, you can cut back your schedule, or shade with window screen to light-acclimate everything.
 
I just bought one of thoes a few hours ago and it is bright white, what color is it suposto be. Do I have to feed it I have a green bta and have never feed it and it does good.

I would show you a picture but it keeps telling me that the surver is wicked busy and to try later.
 
The color change is due to the sudden increase in light. It will adapt to the new light and will regain it's color. It will be fine even if you just leave your light on as is. You double the light on the anemone when you added two new tubes.
About the amount of time the light should be on, you should keep it on at least 12 hrs which is about the average time in nature. Our light are weaker than sunlight so I compensate and leave the light on for 14 hrs. Also this give me time to enjoy the tank at night when I get home from work. I do work long days.
About feeding, I would use seafood for human consumption. You never know if pet food was thaws out on shipping and LFS don't want to take a lost just refreeze them and then sell them. This will not happen with human food. There are many reefers lost anemones to bad silver-side including myself. Human food is much cheaper also. I just feed them whatever fresh seafood I get from the oriental fish market.
 
Last edited:
Bretts05jeep said:
I just bought one of thoes a few hours ago and it is bright white, what color is it suposto be. Do I have to feed it I have a green bta and have never feed it and it does good.

I would show you a picture but it keeps telling me that the surver is wicked busy and to try later.
Click to expand...

Mine was white with a tiny bit of purple I waited to feed for a couple of days to make sure that it was happy and not stressing. after a month It got darker so I think mine was alittle bleached when I got it.
 
OrionN said:
The color change is due to the sudden increase in light. It will adapt to the new light and will regain it's color. It will be fine even if you just leave your light on as is. You double the light on the anemone when you added two new tubes.
About the amount of time the light should be on, you should keep it on at least 12 hrs which is about the average time in nature. Our light are weaker than sunlight so I compensate and leave the light on for 14 hrs. Also this give me time to enjoy the tank at night when I get home from work. I do work long days.
About feeding, I would use seafood for human consumption. You never know if pet food was thaws out on shipping and LFS don't want to take a lost just refreeze them and then sell them. This will not happen with human food. There are many reefers lost anemones to bad silver-side including myself. Human food is much cheaper also. I just feed them whatever fresh seafood I get from the oriental fish market.
Click to expand...



I think I am going to stop useing the silversides since everyone seems to be against them. I have some krill until I find a good place to by shrimp. hopefully It will eat the krill. How often do you feed yours?
 
Also had bad reactions to silvers, but I'm guessing it's adapting to new lights as well.
You could shade w/ screen for a bit to acclimate it.
I'd feed mysis for now, small, easy on them.
I also like to feed scallop, shrimp, mysis on fish feedings.
 
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