My RBTA is bleaching and I don't know why

[cody6766]

I bought a RBTA back in December and it looked awesome for a couple of months. The tank was healthy, growing SPS and my clam, all that. Basically, I'm saying water conditions were the usual good conditions, lighting/filtration/etc were on par for a nem, all was just good and well.

I then hosed all my success when I fired up my newly plumbed sump too soon. The pipe glue killed many of my sps and ****ed off the nem. I would guess this was the cause of the initial bleching. The anemone crawled behind a rock for a day or so, then came back out to a new spot near its old one. It is a decent bit smaller and lost a lot of color after the incident. Now, a few months later, the BTA is still pale pink instead of a good, healthy color.

Here's a quick run down
Lighting is a 6 bulb tek
chem levels are ideal (don't want to type them all out, they're what we shoot for and stable)
SPS that lived are growing, clam is happy, other corals are healthy too. The rest is in my tank list at the bottom.

Should I expect it to regain color? It's pretty much stagnated at a bright pink, but willingly takes food and stays happily inflated; although less than before the incident.

 

[cody6766]

ttt

 

[seafd]

spot feed the bta and that should help it recover.

 

[Samcro]

I'm not sure spot feeding will help get it's color back cause the color is coming from a bacteria (zooanthellia )
Which helps it use the light to produce food.
It doesn't hurt to try either. If you feed mysis or other frozen foods then add some selecon and soak the food in it. I use a turkey baster to blow the mysis into the nem. Stay away from frozen whole foods like silvesides or shrimp ( too many horror stories with bad food) . Fresh scallops or raw shrimp is a food idea. It might get it's color back, or it might not. Only time will tell.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[sjwitt]

You need to spot feed because it has no zooxanthellae with which to process light so, unless it can capture food from the water column it will starve. Spot feeding will provide it nutrition while it naturally regains its zooxanthellae.

 

[steelhead77]

You need to spot feed because it has no zooxanthellae with which to process light so, unless it can capture food from the water column it will starve. Spot feeding will provide it nutrition while it naturally regains its zooxanthellae.

+1 on this.

Also, I seriously doubt the pipe glue was the cause of your problems. Many of us use PVC glue everyday and barely wait until it's dry to run water thru it with no ill effects. I've done this several times and have never had an issue. I'm sure many others would say the same.

 

[cody6766]

I can't think of anything else that could have caused it. The tank was fine, I ran new plumbing into a clean sump with the same equipment, some of the same water, etc. and fired it back up. Everything was growing well before, then it immediately took a turn for the worst. I probably changed 7-8g of water instead of my usual 5. The only changes in the system were the water, the sump and the bottom end of the plumbing.

Anyway, I'll start feeding more. My clowns also feed it and it captures food when I feed the tank. Hopefully it will recover. I truely is a beautiful rose with a green base.

 

[bues0022]

I'm going to second both ideas of spot feeding small meaty foods, and that the PVC glue likely wasn't the culprit. I've also put together joints, waited 30 seconds for it to set, then sent water through without any problems. It was probably something related to the modifications, but not completely obvious. Were there any oils on your hands/tools? Did you clean anything with bleach and not dry/rinse completely? same question about soaps?

BUT, give the BTA time, and it should recover if things are as healthy as you say.

 

[StealthRider]

My buddy has a rose tip and i have noticed that it has been turning from red to brown, did some research and this is what i have found. Clownfish hosting the nem can often times aggitate it and "wash" its color out due to always being beaten into. also i would check levels again... maybe you are low on something and just overlooked it.