The RBTA returns

[orcafood]

Here it is around two months ago.

Here it is two weeks ago.

And now all the white is almost completely gone (sorry no pic yet). My only concern is that the RBTA stays in the shadows all day long, now, after I reaquascaped my rocks. Also, it appears to not have grown at all. I feed it a 1/4 in piece of krill or silverside around four to five times a week. It is located around 15 in below a 14K 175 MH Ushio.

Well, the growth is not entirely true, the fleshy plate part has grown around twice its size, but the tentacles, very bubbly, are only about 1/2 in long and have not grown.

Also lately it has been looking shrunken about once a week. I do a water change of about 20 gallons to the 120 gallon system, and the anemone perks up a lot.
What element could the anemone be deprived of, because everything else in the tank seems fine, and I would rather only do a water change 1-2 times a month instead of the 4 that seems to be required by this one creature.

Thanks for the help!

 

[tgfrench]

Give it some more time. It takes a while to recover from the shape that it was in.
As far as water changes You can go for a 25% change once a month and be good. Unless your nitrates and phos. are outta wack.
Just keep feeding it and it will continue to perk up.

 

[orcafood]

Ok great news tgfrench, thanks. Also, just asking but is iodine or any other trace element largely important to a BTA?

Also, I don't know if it is important information at all, but the pulsing xenia that I have start to look poorly just about the time that the RBTA does (on the once a week schedule)

 

[tgfrench]

No I wouldn't think you need to add all those supplements and elements especially with the number of water changes you are doing. You haven't give us a livestock listing that would indicate any need to do so.

The first pic also shows a problem with cynao algae. Looks like that has cleared up and will be a big help in recovery of the bta.

 

[orcafood]

The cyano outbreak has subsided, and the nitrates made the final plunge to zero after I added a 20 gallon refugium. When they were above zero was the first pic of the anemone, and after they subsided to zero is the second pic.

Invert wise, there is a birds nest, frogspawn, assorted zoas, suncoral, bubble coral, green polyped leather, trumpet coral, xenia, acropora, Anthelia, tons of snails and blue legged hermits (the small kind), a serpent star, coral banded shrimp, Crocea Clam, and a conch

Fish wise, there is a mandarin dragonet, foxface, banaii cardinal, regal tang, royal gramma, lawnmower blenny, and a firefish

On a side note, the anemone looks great today, I guess that he has just been expelling waste once a week, which would make sense. How long should they deflate, because this anemone deflates for over 3-5 hours each time.

 

[tgfrench]

sometimes more sometimes less on the bta.

 

[orcafood]

Ok, this anemone is weird. I just got home and the anemone is about the size of a dime, where as he is usually as big as a drink coaster. Whats up with this?

 

[Ophidia]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12129455#post12129455 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by orcafood
Ok, this anemone is weird. I just got home and the anemone is about the size of a dime, where as he is usually as big as a drink coaster. Whats up with this?

They just do that. I have 4 8" or so RBTA's and sometimes, for no apparent reason, they totally deflate to about 3" across. This is usually in the evening and the next day they're fine again.