New RBTA Comes Tomorrow Question

[blanden.adam]

Hello again guys,

So, my 29 gallon reef hit the 6 month mark last week, and I'm finally ready to try an anemone for my A. ocellaris pair (ok, well it's really for me, but I want them to like it too ) Lucky for me, Scott48 has a few that split off his parent nem (man I love tank raised livestock), and I have family traveling too and from Rochester to pick up a baby one (so it won't outgrow the tank before the upgrade to 75 gallon in 5-6 months or so).

Here is my issue though. I have about 9 corals waiting to come out of quarantine form the frag swap 2 weeks ago, but I don't want them to be sitting on the sandbed photoacclimating just to have my new RBTA decide the sandbed is in his way and it's time for everything else to get stung.

About how long does it usually take a BTA to find it's spot and stick there? How will I know it's picked it's spot and it's safe to deprotect the powerheads/bring in the new corals. Thanks so much guys and I look forward to everyone weighing in!

 

[gchaney]

maybe its just mine but I have a long tentacle that has been in my 125 for about a year and about once a month it up and moves around a little and then usually moves back to its old spot so im not sure if there is a set time line.

 

[Foody]

I purchased one last week and it hasn't moved an inch from it's original spot (which is directly on top of a beautiful colony of dragon eye zoanthids).

 

[blanden.adam]

Thanks for the in)fo guys! (And I'm sorry about your zoanthids Foody, that makes me sad )

 

[saltyscotsman]

RBTA tend to like a lot of light and good flow so try to pick a spot that has those !!

 

[Foody]

This morning I awoke to my RBTA having moved about 2 inches from it's original spot. Still slightly covering the zoanthids. The good news is that the polyps that were covered originally are now open. I thought they were dead for sure.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

BTA Entacmaea quadricolor should be placed midway on rock work. It won't travel to sand bed. Zoanthids stung by this anemone will recover.

 

[block head]

29 is fine for a nem clown setup. Anything else will most likely suffer. The nem will get big and most likely sting coral when it decides to split. Maybe add a pistol shrimp\ goby and call it quits.

 

[blanden.adam]

Tank already stocked, I don't really anticipate problems because as the anemone and corals grow, so will the tank (the tank is growing like crazy, I anticipate it'll grow all the way from a 29 to a 75 by summer! Must be the mysis shrimp i'm feeding it...) And when it decides to split I will re-home the clones. Don't worry, I thought ahead

 

[blanden.adam]

He's in the tank!

He's in the tank!



Here is the new anemone, all nestled into it's crevice in the rock I put it on. Put it in there last night at around 10pm and all it's wanted to do since is get it's foot deeper into that crevice! Hopefully it'll stick there and become my permanent RBTA rock!

 

[Krypt1979]

That has some great color to it. Nice looking Nem!

 

[Budde]

Very nice looking nem, can't wait until I have my build up and running and can put one of those in it.

 

[block head]

29 is not stable. The nem will go walk about . The 29 will make a decent species tank. The frags are on borrowed time IMO. You'll see countless tanks crash and burn following the same basic game plan.

 

[blanden.adam]

Saying a 29 gallon is unstable is really a silly statement. You don't really know anything about the tank, the chemistry values, the filtration, the lighting, what is kept in it, or really anything about it at all. For all you know I have a 1000 gallon sump, making it the most stable 29 gallon ever (I don't, just demonstrating a point).

I respect your opinion that a 29 gallon is a reasonable size for a species only tank, and I believe it has merit, but I entirely disagree with you that a 29 gallon tank will crash simply because it is a 29 gallon tank. Many people have kept reefs of this size, and I personally have been keeping SPS, LPS, soft corals, and corallimorphs in this tank successfully for the last 4 months (waited 2 months to add corals). You can make the argument that it's just a matter of time before it crashes, but you could say the same thing about any tank of any size. Given enough time (even if it is decades and decades), it will crash. Our tanks are ecosystems always on the brink of collapse, so even the most expert of fish keepers cannot sustain a stable environment indefinitely (ignoring those that do a tank "refresh" of sorts, that's biologically the same thing as getting a new tank).

My tank is stable, at least as far as the chemicals and parameters you can test for are concerned. I agree with you that larger tanks are easier to keep parameters stable, but with the right equipment even smaller tanks can be kept stable.

 

[tmz]

Entmacea quidricolor is pretty hardy ,ime. I have had mine for 7 or 8 years. It hosts a pair of tomato clowns. It will split and grow in higher nitrate and phospahte water. Much less so in the low nutrient set up it also also move when stressed.

Movement can be slowed by figuring out which corals it doesn't like and surrounding it once it's had a chance to climb around to find a spot it likes. Mine readily crawled over many corals and damaged some but does not like to mess with sinularlia, nephtea or large protopalythoa grandis polyps.

Here it is when the tank had higher nutrients NO3 >50ppm O4 aound .25ppm). It was splitting regularly and I was running down the clones. Sold and traded about a dozen of the course of a year or two.

Here it is now as it has looked for the last several years in low NO3,,0.2ppm and low PO4 <.05ppm; no splitting , still healthy with much less growth and shorter tentacles. The clowns still love it though:

Good luck with it.

 

[blanden.adam]

RBTA day 2

RBTA day 2

Thanks for the info man. That's quite an idea about surrounding it with corals it doesn't want to move toward. I would have never thought of that! I also didn't realize they could grow in such high nutrient water. I suppose that makes sense though in light of a study I read about anemone growth and water source. Hobbyists that used tap water instead of RO/DI got better anemone growth, likely because of the increased nutrients.

At any rate, here's a picture of the anemone today. Last night it decided it wanted to move deeper into the rock it's sitting on. So much so you could barely see the tentacles. However, the lights kicked on this morning and within a couple hours it was back out with full extension:

View attachment 211839

 

[tmz]

Eurphyllia also stay smaller in the lower nutrient water,ime. That's one of the reasons I'm contemplating aspartic acid additions and or another nitrate supplement like sodium nitrate to tweak it to 1 or 2 ppm and see what happens.

 

[blanden.adam]

Please start a thread when your experiment starts! I am extraordinarily interested to watch and see the results. Because nitrates feed algae and high nitrates brown out/kill SPS, we often label it as "bad" forget that nitrate can be a limiting reagent in our systems just as much as any other chemical!

 

[block head]

Saying a 29 gallon is unstable is really a silly statement. You don't really know anything about the tank, the chemistry values, the filtration, the lighting, what is kept in it, or really anything about it at all. For all you know I have a 1000 gallon sump, making it the most stable 29 gallon ever (I don't, just demonstrating a point).

I respect your opinion that a 29 gallon is a reasonable size for a species only tank, and I believe it has merit, but I entirely disagree with you that a 29 gallon tank will crash simply because it is a 29 gallon tank. Many people have kept reefs of this size, and I personally have been keeping SPS, LPS, soft corals, and corallimorphs in this tank successfully for the last 4 months (waited 2 months to add corals). You can make the argument that it's just a matter of time before it crashes, but you could say the same thing about any tank of any size. Given enough time (even if it is decades and decades), it will crash. Our tanks are ecosystems always on the brink of collapse, so even the most expert of fish keepers cannot sustain a stable environment indefinitely (ignoring those that do a tank "refresh" of sorts, that's biologically the same thing as getting a new tank).

My tank is stable, at least as far as the chemicals and parameters you can test for are concerned. I agree with you that larger tanks are easier to keep parameters stable, but with the right equipment even smaller tanks can be kept stable.

i really wish you the best. i started with a 28 as well. i've spent a ridiculous amount of time on rc. not trying to bash anyone. the learning curve is impossible in the first few years of reef keeping. pop over to the clown/nem forum if you haven't already. 6 months is the general reccomendation for rbta. talk to veterans like TMZ. they have forgotten more than i'll ever know.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

I suppose that makes sense though in light of a study I read about anemone growth and water source. Hobbyists that used tap water instead of RO/DI got better anemone growth, likely because of the increased nutrients.View attachment 211839

flawed study

I've participated in many of them. Don't believe that your anemone is going to do better if you use tapwater!