Hey guys about a week ago I dosed my tank with chem clean and shut the lights off for 72 hours in an effort to erraticate Cyanobacteria. Since then te rbta is all white except for his tips which are still pink and the body which has a reddish hue. Is he starving ? Or something else. He has been moving and eating pieces of silverside fish.
RBTA bleached out! Help
- Thread starter greddy1
- Start date
gsmXwsm
New member
FLux in your tank paranmeters is known to cause bleaching- and yes., witghout light his zoo's can photosynthisize and this most likely he is white- he ate them white it was dark! Relatively new to this but just seach rbta on this site's archives and you can learn alotalotalot of stuff
I would wonder if the treatment for cyano could have also killed the algae (zooxanthellae) in the anemones tissue. 72 hours in the dark would not cause complete bleaching. Anemones sometimes expell the zooxanthellae that lives symbiotically within their tissue, but they don't eat them as a previous poster stated. If the cyano treatment is still in the water, you will need to do water changes and run activated carbon to eliminate it.
water change has already been done and carbon turned on with the skimmer. I just fed him fish today and he gobbled right up so he is eating from that standpoint. Like I said his tips are still pink but will he regain color? I have had the lights turned off before to counter cyano bacteria and he didnt bleach out like this
Mavrk
New member
As long as there is some pink to it, then you can nurse it back to health. Just feed it silversides every day or two for a while. You can reduce the feeding as the color returns.
Without the zooxanthellae the anemone will starve and start eating itself. So it needs food to keep it alive. Once the zoo return it will need less food to supplement.
Without the zooxanthellae the anemone will starve and start eating itself. So it needs food to keep it alive. Once the zoo return it will need less food to supplement.
The pink color is due to the anemones own natural pigmentation. It is not a result of zooxanthellae. A completely bleached anemone can return to it's normal coloration and completely regain the zooxanthellae. I'm glad you're taking all the measures you are, you should be able to get things back to normal in a couple of months.
update folks been about a month since I posted this and not much improvement. One thing I did find was that my alkalinity was way high like 12.5 and I had been dosing at that level. the alk kit I was using at the time was sea chem but now I am using salifert again and the alk is down to 9.2 but without dosing. I have been feeding silversides about every other day and they are eating them so I guess that is positive.
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