something wrong with RBTA,,HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

greg1786

greg1786

Active member
exactly one month and two days ago I added a rainbow bubble tip to my tank. The avatar I am currently using is her two weeks after I got her. In the last few weeks I have been battling a horrific algae bloom and the worst of it is in the rock formation where she is attatched. in the recent week since the algae has been the worst, the poor nem has shrunk by half her size and in the last three days about a quarter of her tentacles have become nothing but nubs. I know this is generally associated with starvation but she hasnt bleached. As a matter of fact she actually has colored up a bit since i bought her. Meaning i think she may have been very slightly bleached in the store but she regained full zooaxnthellae under my quad t5 fixture. I think it may be worth mentioning that my phosphate test is not reading at all but the lowest it can read is 0.25. The nitrated however have spiked in the last two weeks from 15ppm to 40ppm. I immediately did a 25% water change the first day i noticed her tentacles going which was three days ago and will do another tomorrow and post my new parameter. Other then the nitrates everything else is in check to a T. I have begun to feed her everyday now about a half block of marine cuisine and a tiny piece of shrimp. Before she got "sick" i was only feeding once a day. Could that be the problem? she was originally about 7" across her oral disk and i was feeding her 1/2 of the marine cuisine when i was feeding once a week. Should it have been more since she was so large? Can i save her? her mouth was always very tightly closed unless she was expelling waste but now it is SLIGHTLY open sometimes and tightly closed sometimes. Has not begun to gape open. I am very very partial to her and i really cant lose her!!! please please please help if you can and if you have any advice i welcome it very much so. Thanks in advance -greg
 
FLOW?
Changes to tank?
What is causing the change in levels?
RODI or Tap water?

How old is tank?
Where did you get it? LFS? House of Tropicals?
What is salinity?
How old reliable is phospate test?

Good seafood or something that sat out? (raw right?)
 
Dear Greg,

Sorry fo your troubles. I would stop feeding her so much. it actually weakness them as they have digest the food, and that could be why you might have the nitrate spike. I have 8 rbta and only feed them once every 2 weeks. I used to feed every week and I stopped becasue they began to multiple like crazy. When I first started it was only one. As for the changing of water make sure you don't do them so often as that could strees your system. I'm no expert, but not to long ago I had a mini crash and I began to do water changes every day and my corals seem to get worse. So I jumped on here and asked for advise and one the members advised about to many water changes and sure enought I started doing water changes once a week and slowy, but surly the system stabilized. Here's a good web site that helped me alot when I first started with the bta http://www.karensroseanemones.net/
by the way what's your temp at?

I hope this helps in some way.

Good luck
Frank
 
flow...two marineland maxijet 600 circulation pumps....tank is one year four months old roughly....temp is 78...sg is 1.025....cal is 460...ph 8.1....alk is 12....nitrite n amonia zero...the reason I started feeding everyday was cause I read on karensroseanemone that a starving nem should be fed small amounts everyday until the tentacles grow back. I will post a pic of her in am when lights are on. my wc schedule is usually 10% weekly I only increased because of nitrate and phos spike. I bought her from that fish place. Is it possible that the algae bloom is causing her demise? I built an algae scrubber the other day to try and get rid of the algae. I really don't know why she has all the sudden gone down hill she was so healthy for all this time


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I missed a few of ur questions the water is not tap it is bottled water and the seafood is always raw fresh shrimp I own a restaurant where I bring the shrimp from


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I'm going to stop feeding her the marine cuisine it seems like she lets more go than she can consume I'm starting to think that may be why she is starving to death because she wasn't eating much if any of that. I am bringing home a bunch of 21-25 shrimps tonight from the restaurant they are fresh we just got them in this am. how small of pieces should I cut them into and how many pieces should I feed her? also when u brought that green bubble tip back how often were u feeding it


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Every other day, was feeding it a piece about the size of its mouth. That was before I started seeing marked improvement...then I slowly backed off. The hardest part was getting it to fully ingest the piece of food...you really need to help the food get past the lips...that's ONLY if it doesn't have the strength to do that itself. Mine was literally too weak to bring food into its body.
 
greg1786 said:
I'm going to stop feeding her the marine cuisine it seems like she lets more go than she can consume I'm starting to think that may be why she is starving to death because she wasn't eating much if any of that. I am bringing home a bunch of 21-25 shrimps tonight from the restaurant they are fresh we just got them in this am. how small of pieces should I cut them into and how many pieces should I feed her? also when u brought that green bubble tip back how often were u feeding it
Click to expand...

Size of a pea.

I feed my three once every 3 days. The size of a pea.
 
i fed her last light three pieces of shrimp the size of a pea...this am she had spit them out....im trying again tonight with only one piece any qdvice or thoughts why she spit them out 10 hours after she ate them


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Don't feed her again. It will just stress her. I don't feed anemone unless they are healthy. I would concentrate of getting the tank condition optimal. Do water change what ever. However, wait until she is healthy before you feed her again.

When you mix salt water, wait for 24 hr before you use the water. Freshly mix saltwater is toxic to the animals in the tank. If you use bottle water, use distil or RO water. Bottle drinking water that have "mineral added for taste" should not be use.
 
This is where my views are divergent from most. If it clearly us starving then i would force feed it, like i did with my gbta. If you do that it has to be SLOW...took mine about an hour the first time. Mine were too weak to hold onto the food.

Again, those were my results...if you dont feel confident in doing this then i DO NOT suggest doing it. I've kept BTAs for a while now and have observed the behaviors of my individual BTAs so i was/am comfortable doing this procedure.

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If it is not bleached and under good light, it will not starve. However feeding it when it cannot digest the good will only stress it more. It wast energy trying to digest the food but will not get anything out of it because it cannot and then regurgitate it, pollute the tank even more. When it cannot digest the food, the more you feed, the worst it get.
 
Again this is just MY experience. I have successfully brought BTAs from the edge with this technique. Karen used to have the procedures on her website, but took it down because it's dangerous.

Nothing is entirely photosynthetic, not even zoas. Since those are essentially small anemones, it would reason to me that something bigger like a bta would need even more than just light. That is my reasoning.

Like i said, these views are divergent from conventional wisdom, but my results have been positive and speak for themself. I don't advocate that this be done in every case or by everyone. But those who tell you you should not perform this at the first sign of trouble are correct. This is a last ditch type of procedure

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gonzo, i have been following karensroseanemones advice and yours as well and feeding a very very small amount each day. The nem eats a pea sized piece of shrimp each time and for the past two or three times shes kept it down and actually eaten it within a few minutes. My question is, with her in such poor health and me trying to bring her back, do you think i should cover her with a colander or place her and the rock she attatched to in a small tupperware with holes to keep the cinnamon clown that is hosting her out? is it possible that the clown is stressing her? Honestly the entire time she was in the tank without the clowns she was so healthy and it seems ever since i added the clown she went down hill. What do you think?
 
Yes! Big aggressive clowns can kill weak anemones! I would definitely separate the clown until such time as its healthy and big enough to handle the "rough love" from your clown. Though i would move the clown, not the nem for fear of stressing it out. There is a sticky about catching clowns easily...

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OrionN said:
Don't feed her again. It will just stress her. I don't feed anemone unless they are healthy. I would concentrate of getting the tank condition optimal. Do water change what ever. However, wait until she is healthy before you feed her again.

When you mix salt water, wait for 24 hr before you use the water. Freshly mix saltwater is toxic to the animals in the tank. If you use bottle water, use distil or RO water. Bottle drinking water that have "mineral added for taste" should not be use.
Click to expand...

I am currently using distilled water....I was unaware that fresh saltwater is toxic Minh....thank you for that. what makes it toxic?


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