Problems with RBTA

[Janina]

I got a beautiful 6-8" RBTA a few weeks ago. It was shipped and had nice healthy color and foot. I did a slow drip acclimation to my 90g reef that has been established for a year. Everything is doing great in my tank. My parameters are all in check (i.e. ammonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates 0, salinity 1.025, steady temp between 78-79) I dose daily with liquid alk and calc). Lighting is 2x250W 12K.

So, it looked great when I got it and it found a place under a rock and only partially peeked out to the light. It never fully comes out to the light and the color has been fading since I got it. Now it is lighly pink in some areas and almost grey/white in others. I try feeding it silversides but it doesn't seem to be taking them. I tried moving rocks to expose it to more light and turning the rock over to give it light but it keeps creeping away into dark corners with very little light and making it really hard to try to feed it. I'm afraid that if it keeps going at the current rate, it won't make it for long. Any suggestions on what I can do. It obviously needs light and food but doesn't seem to want either. Should I try to seperate it from the rest of the tank somehow (any suggestions?) so it can't get away from the light and hide making it hard to feed. It also doesn't help that my female black and white clown attacks my hand everytime I put it in the tank. The clowns will host in the RBTA sometimes but they also have two green BTAs that they host in.

Thanks for your input

 

[Gold Stripe]

Bump for a good question.

 

[philip_r5]

I had a LTA that did this. I would go into my caves in my tank away from the lighting. It wouldn't eat either.

 

[sk8rreefgeek]

How close are the BTA's?
How bout a pic of the Rose, and GBTAs. How long have the GBTA's been healthy?

It sounds weird, but it might be possible that the GBTA's sensed the 'newcomer' and are engaging in chemical warfare. I don't know a lot about it, but I've heard it's possible.

Just a thought

 

[Smo]

It obviously needs light, but yours may be too bright for it right now.
I would try to diffuse the light over the area where the new RBTA is at. Maybe it will come out then.

Then slowly over a couple of weeks increase the light back to where it is now.

 

[Janina]

BTW, my avatar shows what the color looked like when I first got it over a month ago.
I decided that keeping it in my 90g wasn't going to work since I couldn't access it very well to feed and turning down the lights wouldn't work well for the rest of my corals so I set up my 12g nano with existing LR and water (not from current tank but from 100g rubbermaid tub with 200-250 lbs of established LR waiting for me to set up 180g tank). I'm planning on just keeping the RBTA in the tank and nursing it back to health. I am currently running just one of the 24W PCs and hoping it can handle that without hiding away and will then add a second 24W PC and eventually the third one. After that it should be able to handle my 250W halides.

Any thoughts or comments on this approach?

 

[loyalrogue]

Not a bad idea moving it away from the main tank for the time being if it is having a hard time acclimating there for whatever reason.
If you can, find out what lighting it was under before you purchased it and for how long.
Also find out what, if any, supplimental feeding they were giving it.

Keep trying to feed it manually, but mince the silversides (and/or any other seafood you want to try) before feeding.
It's easier to digest and at least some of it should stick and be ingested even if it doesn't appear to be eating.

As for the lighting, I doubt you have to drop it all the way down to the extreme of a single 24w bulb.
Moving from the 250w MH to 72w of PC should be more than a sufficient drop in PAR to see if it was suffering light shock.

 

[Santoki]

I think you should leave it alone and let it hide. It will decide when the time is right to come out and how fast it wants to adjust to your lighting. Transferring it will only introduce more change. That should be used as a last resort or if you know that something in the water is bothering it. Just my 2 cents.

 

[sk8rreefgeek]

I was kinda leaning that way too. If your water quality is better in the 90g, I'd leave it there

 

[Janina]

I left it alone for several weeks and just kept trying to feed it best I could but it just continued to decline and not come out to the light anymore at all. Since I've already moved it now, I guess I'll leave it where it is and see how it does. At least I can easily see it and feed it.

 

[Santoki]

by decline, do you mean shrinking? I just noticed you dose alk and cal daily... do you test daily for that as well? Alk swings could cause what you are talking about, but that would be seen in the other inhabitants in your tank as well. Do you have other BTAs/corals in the tank that is doing fine and growing? If so, it would be hard to say there is anything wrong with your lighting or water quality. It may be this anecdotal unproven chemical warfare thing that is being waged, or that you have a particularly sensitive RBTA...
I have RBTA's in my reef that have grown and split and I have never actively fed them. If lighting and water parameters are good, they usually grow after acclimating to your specific setup.
I would do a large water change and stop dosing anything for a couple weeks and see what happens...

 

[Janina]

I dose the 2 part solutions daily and I don't test for them daily. Everything else including my othe two BTAs are growing like crazy. By decline I mostly mean that it is losing color and the tenticles are pretty short and study. I wouldn't say that it's shrinking yet overall but it doesn't expand itself fully as it should. My other BTAs don't usually require feeding and they still grow. I occasionally feed them a piece of silversides or scallops. I tried feeding minced silverside to the RBTA last night but still wouldn't take it. However it seems to be handeling the 24W PC light without trying to hide away from it. If it continues to tolerate it, I will up it to 48W PC.

 

[Santoki]

It seems that you are assuming that the lighting in your 90G was the factor in it's decline, however, keep in mind that you've moved the RBTA, hence whatever was bothering it may be attributed to any number of factors including untestable chemicals/water parameters, etc...
Note that peak natural sunlight at the equator is more intense than any of our halide systems.
Hopefully it recovers and you can attempt to re-introduce into your display..