RBTA stubby tentacles

[mrbottom]

Hi guys,
I have a RBTA that I've had in my 60 gallon cube for about 6 weeks now, on week 2 it moved its self up to the rear of my rock stack, this is still open to light and open water, just out of easy view, typical behaviour!

The nem is feeding well, it takes a decent sized prawn once a week and what ever my maroon spits out at it.

What concerns me is that some (not all) of the tentacles have become very short and stubby almost like nodules on the main plate of the nem.

Parameters are:-

ammonia 0
nitrate 0
PO4 0
pH 8
Kh 8
Calcium 440
Mag 1325

Lighting 4 x24 14k T5's

Flow in the tank is medium

about 2 weeks ago I wanted to get the nem to move so I adjusted the lighting ( I have secondary lighting unit with space for another 4 bulbs) by turning on a couple of actanics, this had no effect so I altered the flow direction, this had no effect, then tried to double the feeding, it just spat out what it didn't want.
My thinking was I'd probably need a grenade to move the thing so probably best left alone.

The nem is fully open and deflates once a week, it's being hosted by a 2.5 inch maroon clown.

So I'm now a little confussed, it seems to be in perfect health other than these nodular tentacles?

Any suggestions/answers would be gratefully received.

cheers

stuart

 

[patriots81]

i think its okay. most bta's, including mine do not bubble up at all. they look kind of like LTAs. no one really knows how to get them to bubble up.

 

[t4zalews]

mine only bubbled when under high light (400w), maybe the maroon is too agressive with it? what size is the anemone

 

[Coral Hind]

A picture would be very helpful.

Have you ever seen torn off tentacles laying in the sand? My maroon would tear off part of the tentacles and part left behind would heal over but be shorter then the others. Maroons can love an anemone to death at times.

 

[mrbottom]

Hi guys,
I've attached two images for you to take a look at entitled good side and bad side.
Looking at what coral hind said about the maroon damaging the nem looks like the most plausable answer.
The clown is not very photogenic, she never strays more than 4 inches from the nem but you can see her at the very bottom in badside.jpg image in the red ring.

(sorry about the focus guys I didn't have time to get the tripod out, the missus discovered me laying on the floor with my feet wedged against the tank stand "is this some kind of wierd living sculpture thing you're into now! I thought the two tanks full of coral were wierd enough")

As you can see from this image all the tentacles other than one or two are short and stubby.

If you look at the alternate image which was shot from the other side the nem is just poking out at the top, you can see my GBTA looks fine in the lower left.
The clown never ventures over this side and all the tentacles there look fine.
I saw a tear mark yesterday where I could have sworn there was a tentacle earlier, it has healed this morning and looks ok.

Any suggestions as I think coral hind is right (the clown isn't paired yet either, two unsuccessful candidates in the last 3 weeks!)

cheers

stu

 

[Coral Hind]

It doesn't look that bad to be and I would not worry about the shorter tentacles. The way they are all on one side looks like they could be just growing out. When an anemone asexually divides it basically tears itself apart to create a clone. When this happens you will end up with one side of the anemone with the original tentacles. The other side has to grow new tissue and tentacles as the mouth slowly moves to the center.

How long do you have your lights on for and are the bulbs old? Both anemones look a little paler or slightly bleached then they should be. IMHO the lighting should be slowly increased.

 

[mrbottom]

Hi there,
thanks for the fast response!
I have 4x 24 watt 14k's, 2 of which come on for 12 hrs the other 2 come on for 8hrs along with another 14k and a single actanic.
I basically have two of the arcadia 24inch overtank luminairs so a run one full one and half of the other, but i do have space in there for an additional two bulbs which would be 8 total.
what do you recommend on the photo periods?
I basically don't run many actanics becuase I've heard nems aren't so keen on them.

cheers

Stu

 

[mrbottom]

oh and the bulbs are just under 6 months but still pretty bright

 

[Coral Hind]

I am not sure where you got that information from but I do not subscribe to that. I feel actinic lighting around 420nm promotes the growth of zooxanthellae algae, essential for the growth and well-being of all photosynthetic corals and invertebrates but not for macro algaes. I would run more actinic bulbs, I have a 50/50 mix over my anemone tank. I think the photo period is fine.

 

[t4zalews]

what brand of bulbs are you running, that could make big difference.

 

[Rod Buehler]

I dont run any actinic lighting over any of my anemones and they seen to do well

 

[mrbottom]

Hi there,
all the bulbs are giesmann so they've got some serious punch.
would you guys stick with the 6 bulbs or up it to the full 8?

How often are you guys feeding? mine seem to be good on a deecnt sized prawn once a week, i tried twice but the rose seems to spit it out so I kept them both at once?

cheers

 

[t4zalews]

I was gunna say run 6 daytime bulbs and then have 2 actinics, actinics are really for more of a color punch, I too don't run any actinics and have good success. Even though BTA's are the least light hungy anemone, they still need a good amount of light. I've fed BTA's silversides before but the pieces were to big for the anemone to fully digest, so I started feeding PE mysis with selcon, the anemone seemed to digest these much better and I saw improvement in a couple of weeks. With the pictures the anemone seemed like it needed to build up its zoox, feeding smaller foods will help out with this over feeding larger items. I've nursed back really sickly looking anemones before using PE mysis with great success. Try this for a few weeks and see if you see a deepining in color

 

[mrbottom]

ok cool,
I'll stick an extra white in and turn on the extra actanic and see how we go.
the rose seems to have decent colour, just looks a bit washed out in the image, the green BTA does look pale though now you guys mention it, I'll try mysis for a while and see how it goes

cheers

 

[mrbottom]

Hi guys,
it's been a while as I've been waiting to see how things go, I added the extra actinic but the rose seemed to get extra annoyed at that, went really stubby and started to split. After about 5 days (thought I'd give it a chance to acclimatize) things were not looking good at all! at this point I changed out the actinic for a 14k white, after 3 days under the white the rose decided it was finally going to move and shunted it's self through a hole in the rock face and positioned it's self right next to my other two BTA's, the tentacles had started to look a touch fuller by this point so I gave it a small piece of prawn to try and spur it along, there was a very fast feeding response, it almost snatched at it as soon as the prawn touched a tentacle. From here on in it's gone from strength to strength! It's stopped splitting and about 80 percent of the tentacles have lengthened back out, even a few bubble tips made an appearance! it's now beginning to colour up again so my fingers are crossed.
As to the reason for the recovery I just don't know, maybe the intensity of the new bulb finally forced the thing to move to a better position, I couldn't say whether running no actinic bulbs is better or worse, like coral hind mentioned, he always runs them and does really well, and having looked at the specs on last months tank of the month with about 50 nems and as many clowns, there's no argument that actinics are a no no, that tank runs them and that's probably the most spectacular nem systems we are probably likely to see for a while!
I would like to know why but for the moment I'm content that the rose has turned it's self around.

cheers

stu

 

[Coral Hind]

That is awesome news! Thanks for updating us.

 

[The_cold_one]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15657360#post15657360 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mrbottom
Hi guys,
it's been a while as I've been waiting to see how things go, I added the extra actinic but the rose seemed to get extra annoyed at that, went really stubby and started to split. After about 5 days (thought I'd give it a chance to acclimatize) things were not looking good at all! at this point I changed out the actinic for a 14k white, after 3 days under the white the rose decided it was finally going to move and shunted it's self through a hole in the rock face and positioned it's self right next to my other two BTA's, the tentacles had started to look a touch fuller by this point so I gave it a small piece of prawn to try and spur it along, there was a very fast feeding response, it almost snatched at it as soon as the prawn touched a tentacle. From here on in it's gone from strength to strength! It's stopped splitting and about 80 percent of the tentacles have lengthened back out, even a few bubble tips made an appearance! it's now beginning to colour up again so my fingers are crossed.
As to the reason for the recovery I just don't know, maybe the intensity of the new bulb finally forced the thing to move to a better position, I couldn't say whether running no actinic bulbs is better or worse, like coral hind mentioned, he always runs them and does really well, and having looked at the specs on last months tank of the month with about 50 nems and as many clowns, there's no argument that actinics are a no no, that tank runs them and that's probably the most spectacular nem systems we are probably likely to see for a while!
I would like to know why but for the moment I'm content that the rose has turned it's self around.

cheers

stu

When you change the environment suddenly like you did by adding the actinic, BTAs in general will split as a means of survival. Stressed BTAs split when stressed to enhance their survival like yours was doing. As a general rule of thumb, anemones like the "whiter" light ranging from 6000-10k since that is what they primarily live under in the wild. Actinics can be just for looks sometimes because they bring out the wild colors in your tank. Anyways...

Good luck.