Rainbow BTA turning purple and smaller - Normal?

[KennyB]

Hi everyone! Newbie here. Have question about my rainbow BTA changing from orange/green to purple (and is smaller/shrunk in size). Is this normal? Tank: 20G AIO 5 months old. No live rock when started. Cycled 8 weeks. Water parameters from start-up have been good. Thought my API/Red Sea test kits were faulty as nitrates, ammonia, pH, phosphate, oxygen sats, Ca+, Mg+ are almost too good to be true - I test 3-5 times a week (do I need to get a life?). Temp 77.7 degrees stable, 1.025 sg. Have protein skimmer, CO2 scrubber, Nero3 powerhead, upgraded pump, AI PrimeHD16. Getting some coralline algae. Bought rainbow BTA two months ago from LFS. It moved around 3-4 times and found a happy place in rock crevice. It opens, closes, shrinks, expands, but is now smaller and stringy, not puffy as in pics. It extruded a brownish stingy thing 3 x (Mr Cleaner Shrimp devoured the last one). I feed it krill 2x week, on occasion mysis shrimp. Tank mates: 1 Fighter conch, 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 lawnmower Blenny, 1 clownfish, 4 bumblebee snails. Did have deaths: Never more than 4 fish at a time. Two chromis died in a week (one bullied by clowns/nipped/stressed out?), next one died in 24 hours. Original clownfish then died in 24 hours three weeks ago (Brooklynella?Marine Velvet?). Neither it or other clown hosted the BTA (bummer!). Remaining clown looked lonely, bought another clown, and after the two did the domination shimmy's, it immediately made mad love to the anemone (oh happy day!). It suddenly died 3 days later. No jokes please. It had white spots (marine velvet?). That all said, after it dies, the BTA began to change color. Does it have a broken heart? LOL I have some zoas, Goni's, failing mushrooms, torch, frogspawn, monti's, blasto, acan, trumpet coral. Sorry for the long manifesto, but trying to provide picture. I also bought Aqua Ultraviolet sterilizer three days ago - color change was before UV. Any clues on the anemone? It hasn't moved and is near middle of tank so it must like it there.

 

[bradleym]

Could you please provide the parameters from your testing? "Too good to be true" is a bit vague, and good for one kind of creature can be different for a different kind of creature.

 

[kfisc]

One possibility is the intensity and color temp of your lights. They wither without the right levels.

Here is a thread with good conversation about lighting:

Best lighting for bubble tip anemones? - Reef Central Online Community

 

[KennyB]

Thank you for responding!
Tested water this morning at usual time:
pH 8.2
Alk 8.7
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5
PO4 0.14
Ca+ 430
Mg+ 1260
O2 = 7
Temp 97

 

[KennyB]

Could you please provide the parameters from your testing? "Too good to be true" is a bit vague, and good for one kind of creature can be different for a different kind of creature.

Thank you for responding!
Tested water this morning at usual time:
pH 8.2
Alk 8.7
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5
PO4 0.14
Ca+ 430
Mg+ 1260
O2 = 7
Temp 77

 

[Anemone]

How's the anemone doing? Can you get any pictures without the heavy blues? That makes telling anything from the pictures almost impossible.

Kevin

 

[Uncle99]

MG a bit on the low side @1260, 1350-1400ppm better or you may get flux in your Alk and CA.
What is the daily flux like in terms of Alk, and PH over 24 hours?
Nem don’t like instability much and may benefit from some white/green/red spectrum lighting.