Paired Tomato Clowns killing my RBTA?

[amcvay1979]

Hello, I have an established 150 g reef tank with everything from SPS/LPS, clam, zoas and mushrooms and a pink RBTA.

My 2 tomato clowns were forced to move from a very large green BTA to a smaller RBTA but they went into it in less than 15 seconds of me adding it to the tank. The nem has done very well until recently. It looks like it is a nice size in diameter but the tentacles are almost all gone. I feed it pretty regularly when it's out, but the past month it's looked aweful.

I've seen it shrink and hide, I've seen the clowns rip off tentacles and today I saw it have a nice piece of krill in it's mouth that I fed it, and the large female clown ripped the food out of its mouth and spit it onto the sand. I try to keep the clowns away while I feed it, but they're starting to nip at my hand. I'm thinking they may need to find new homes.

Why would tomato clowns intentionally hurt it's host? I had wondered if my 3 peppermint shrimp were tearing off tentacles at night but I've never seen it, but I've not looked for it either.

Thoughts?

 

[wattos-reef]

...I've seen the clowns rip off tentacles...

I've seen this behavior to a limited extent with a pair of Maroons and a very large RBTA. However, this only happened when they were particularly agitated by my hand in the tank near their host and also appeared to always be the more aggressive female. Never more than a few tentacles were plucked and the RBTA didn't show any signs of stress as a result.

How long have they been in the new tank and are there any sources of chronic disturbance near them?

 

[amcvay1979]

The clowns have been in since April, always had anemone to hide in until it outgrew the tank and began stinging everything in there. I removed the rock it was attached to over a month ago and put a smaller RBTA in, they were stressed while I was redoing the rock work and they even bit me and drew blood. When I put the new RBTA they went right in it, like 15 seconds later but they've since been extremely aggressive towards me every time my hand is in the tank. Today after I tried to feed the nem, it shrank and it hasn't come back out since. I was going to say the nem looked better today, until it shrank and now looks aweful.

I'm beginning to wonder if I need to try to catch the tomatos and trade them to my LFS and see if the RBTA does better without them.

 

[wattos-reef]

Today after I tried to feed the nem, it shrank and it hasn't come back out since.

They'll do that for various reasons, some good, some bad. They'll often retreat into the rocks when they split or if there's been a change in their environment. If it doesn't recover by morning I'd keep a close eye on water quality as they can quickly foul the water if it dies in the tank.

In any event, it sounds like for whatever reason your clowns and RBTA aren't getting along and would consider separating them, assuming the RBTA recovers.

BTW, in the 15 or so years I've been keeping RBTAs I've almost never directly fed them. Good lighting and water flow, allowing them to occasionally snag a morsel, has worked for me. And, yes, as you've observed the clowns will indeed steal food from the nem but never worried as the nem may get it the second time around after the fish is done with it.

 

[amcvay1979]

It did re-emerge from being shrunken inside the rock. The only major shift in water chemistry in my tank is going from 0/0 nitrate/phos to 1ppm nitrate and .06 phos to help color up the corals within the past week to 10 days. Everything has colored up nicely. I'm really hoping that the tentacles grow back and hopefully it'll be ok.

It may just be splitting because the light should be more than adequate (2 AI 52's placed 12 inches above water and the nem is right in the middle of the tank where the light converges. So maybe it's just going through a split or something?

 

[wattos-reef]

Of course unless two nems emerged it didn't split, however environmental stress is believed to be a trigger for splitting. While I did have many splits over the years I really didn't find there to be a direct correlation here but the premise does sound reasonable.

Keep an eye on the clowns and if they stop plucking tentacles, the RBTA stays inflated, it should be fine.

What percentage of the tentacles would you say were bitten off?

 

[amcvay1979]

3 days ago I would have said 80-90, today it looks much better and id say most of the tentacles are back but they're short and stubby. I'll try to get a pic later when the lights are on.

 

[amcvay1979]

Happy to report that my RBTA seems to be bouncing back, there are small tentacles growing all over it and it's open all day until it gets fed. The clowns do sometimes pick food out of its mouth still for whatever reason but its looking much healthier than before.