RBTA been shriveled up for a long time

[Kelly&Ely]

Ok We've had this RBTA for about 3 months now, the first 2 to 3 weeks it did good in the tank, moved around a lot and then found a happy spot and our Clown hosted in it for a bit. But then our clown moved on to hosting in our biggest ricordia and left the anem. Since then the RBTA moved more towards the center of the tank onto a different rock, every since it had just stayed shriveled up with none of the bubble tips every coming out. It will inflate and deflate about an inch or so each day but never come out. I've directly fed it multiple times thinking it wasn't getting enough to eat, it will eat and poop just like normal. All our other corals are doing great and spreading, kenya, GSP, ricordia's(3 new babies), Hairy mushrooms, Green hairy mushrooms, and Devils finger, and some zoas. We dose with the 2 part A and B plus the Kent marine reef basics kit with essential elements etc...
Any ideas of what to do?
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/230179_673250434138_56705919_34943834_6966360_n.jpg

 

[rocking]

it looks like he is not happy it might be meany things makeing him do this
i would look into getting him a new home

 

[bradleym]

The green and red algae all over the rocks suggests that your nutrient levels are too high. It would be helpful to list all the statistics you know, i.e. salt, temp, pH, nitrates, alk, ammonia. Also, what size tank, what lights, how long has it been set up... All that kind of stuff. And last, the anemone is really bad off. It may be too far gone, and if it recovers it will take several months with regular feeding, as it seems to have lost it's tentacles.

 

[sjwitt]

+1 with bradleym, but it could recover. See this thread on an Anemone in similar shape
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2007119

What are your parameters? Could be the answer lies somewhere in those numbers. Anemones are much more 'sensitive' to water quality than other creatures. That's why they're so difficult to maintain.

 

[Rod Buehler]

my first guess is that its starving from too much/many feedings. Especially if youre feeding anything larger than maybe 1/2 of a pea. Anemones will expend more energy than gained from "chunks" of food.

 

[DeathWish302]

my first guess is that its starving from too much/many feedings. Especially if youre feeding anything larger than maybe 1/2 of a pea. Anemones will expend more energy than gained from "chunks" of food.

Rod - I respect that you are fully aware of anemone requirements for health and have a vast experience with these creatures but I have to ask....

Where has this been documented or experimentally trialed:

Especially if youre feeding anything larger than maybe 1/2 of a pea. Anemones will expend more energy than gained from "chunks" of food.

I've fed my BTA's 1/4" cubes, mysis and even pieces of fish the size of krill with no degradation. My anemones, even the GBTA in my nano, are not to be considered the 'norm', optimal or 'the way'. I've just not seen any partially digested chunks of food floating in the tank or on the sb 2hrs-48hrs after feeding, so I expect that little is not digested. Does the caloric needs to process that food require more than received...that is what I'm trying to decipher instead of the usual he said/she said.

I would just like to clarify where this ideology has risen from and where is the scientific backing that food size can result in a net loss of energy.

 

[Rod Buehler]

Rod - I respect that you are fully aware of anemone requirements for health and have a vast experience with these creatures but I have to ask....

Where has this been documented or experimentally trialed:



I've fed my BTA's 1/4" cubes, mysis and even pieces of fish the size of krill with no degradation. My anemones, even the GBTA in my nano, are not to be considered the 'norm', optimal or 'the way'. I've just not seen any partially digested chunks of food floating in the tank or on the sb 2hrs-48hrs after feeding, so I expect that little is not digested. Does the caloric needs to process that food require more than received...that is what I'm trying to decipher instead of the usual he said/she said.

I would just like to clarify where this ideology has risen from and where is the scientific backing that food size can result in a net loss of energy.

1/4" cubes for a larger healthier anemone is not large, but for something that isnt doing well, and feeding multiple times like the OP initially stated led me to guess overfeeding.

As for documentation of where the ideology came from, Phil said it best in this thread (which also deals with feedings)..
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1998962

He said..

FWIW, if you take a look at the scientific literature and compare it to what we know about keeping anemones, almost all of what we know comes from the personal experiences of hobbyists. Do you think that our knowledge of the different lighting needs of the different host anemones came from scientific experiments? How about water flow needs, preferred placement? All of this came from hobbyists who shared information, not scientists doing experiments.

Most the scientific literature talks about chemical pathways and how clownfish interact with their host anemones. Those that do in lab physiology experiments usually fall way short of being useful. He is an example:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1439-0485.2010.00405.x/full

On the surface it seems that this scientist has show that the numbers of zooxanthellae in S. mertensii decline significantly when the animal is starved for 3, 45 and 280 days. Therefore S. mertensii must be fed for its zooxanthellae population to be healthy, right? Well.... if you you look at their methodology, you notice that they were using 40 watt fluorescent lights over their anemones.. My conversion of their light numbers came out to 4500 lumens. This means they were using One 40 watt fluorescent over their tanks to try to keep their anemones alive for 10 months. Their results are completely invalid because they didn't have enough light to keep the zooxanthellae alive. Perhaps they should have used some basic hobby magazines in their abstract.

My suggestion was based on my experience and a host of other's, who have kept anemones long term and who have lost perfectly healthy anemones after feeding large meals. Many of these people are scientists by profession. Check with the people who have kept S. gigantea long term. See if they feed large meals of silverside or whole shrimp.

A thread that shows some of my experience with anemones can be seen here,

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1603392

 

[zeeter]

Overfeeding, whether it is too often or the food is too large, will often keep a nem shriveled up. They just don't need food so they don't extend themselves. I stopped target feeding my nems a while back and just let my tank feedings do the work for me and they've done a lot better since. I also got better lighting which helped.