Trouble with rose bubble tip anemone

[AquaMonkey]

I am hoping someone here can ease my fears or explain how I might be able to get my BTA to overcome its problem.

The symptoms:
"¢ He is all shriveled up, he came attached to a rock which I placed next to one of mine and he seemed fine, and even started moving into the crack between the rocks. Me and my superior intellect decided it would be a great time to move him while he was floating for a new footing, to a place that "œI" wanted him to go to which was near my clownfish's hangout.
"¢ I waited for a number of days to see if he would move or start to open up again. He never did so I have since moved the rock I had placed it on back to its original area.
"¢ I have no idea how much water flow to give it so after about 3 more days of it being shriveled I decided to aim a low powered Koralia fan in its general direction to give it some flow.
"¢ It does have its foot down now, but this has been only been within the last day or two.

Tank conditions:
"¢ I have 2 sets of lights on the tank at the moment a 54watt T5-HO lights 2bulbs each.
"¢ I also have my Coralife compact fluorescents on the front of the tank area
"¢ I have 2 1200 Maxi-jets pointing towards the front of the tank from the sides
"¢ There is one Koralia 3 pointed at a cross angle to one of the 1200's
"¢ And there is Koralia 3 that is now pointed towards the back of the tank wall for the BTA.
"¢ My salinity is right at 1.025 -1.024, pH 8.0 -7.9, Nitrates 5.0 - 10ppm , Ammonia is 0% and my temp is between 77 "“ 78 dropping to 76.5 or so with the lights off at night.
"¢ I do frequent water changes with my RO/DI water and use Seachem reef salt.

Tank specs:
"¢ 90 gallon reef with a corner overflow. Meas. ( 48lX25hX18w)
"¢ 20 gallon sump/refugium with 30 pounds of rock I have a biowheel filter running Chem-Pur and a small amount of carbon.
"¢ Sand bed depth depends on how my goby decides to reform the landscape, but it started out at about 2 inches if that.

My other anemone is doing great always out eats well when I feed him once a week or so some krill.
I also have a leather tree, leather mushroom, galaxia, several mushrooms and some zoes , frogspawn and a hammerhead coral that all seem to be thriving.

Fish mates: Sailfin tang, yellow tang, 2 Percula Clown fish, a diamond back goby, red starfish ( who is doing great and getting bigger than I ever thought he would), and misc other inverts; One large cleaner shrimp, 3 peppermint shrimp  new due to the recent aptasia infestation. And many blue crab and Nassarius snails.

I know this may be too much info but maybe something in here will help. Also I wanted to add that I just today saw that his foot was attached, and he seems to shrivel up when the whites come on more so then he normally is. The place I bought him at was Premium Aquatics and I believe they use metal Halide lights. I didn't have this problem with my other anemone when I place it in the tank it just moved from place to place a couple of days until it was happy then stayed put. Btw thus anemone's current location is near the bottom of the tank. I was wondering if the BTA was getting to much light, but beings it came from MH's to weaker T-5's I would think it would not be TOO much light.

Thanks in advance

 

[WaffleWalffle22]

Your tank sounds fine to me. Maybe it's just the Anemone?

 

[dalston]

It is possible it is acclimating to your lighting. You say the previous lighting was MH, how large was the tank, what bulbs, and how far was the light away from the water? It is possible your T5 are more intense than it's previous home...

 

[gabberjaw]

I got a rbta from a guy and just before I got there it got stuck in a vortex cutting all its tenticals. I still brought it home and just let it do its thing. No matter where you want them they will find the place they want to be. You can move them all you want to no avail. Keep up the feeding and not only will the color be vibrent but it will grow and slit faster. Good luck with the hosting thing my clowns have not figured it out eigther something about them being tank breed.

 

[dalston]

Not to derail this thread but being captive raised has absolutley nothing to do with clowns not being hosted, it is a natural instinct, not one that is learned. The biggest problem is that many people do not provide their clowns with their natural symbionts.

Anyways, carry on...

 

[AquaMonkey]

I went ahead and left the 10ks off on the T-5's that are above it today. It seems to be a little better then it was the last few weeks. I thought BTA needed/ Loved bright lights?

How long should I leave my lights down for on it? Should I just turn them on a couple hours a day, and slowly increase it?

Thanks for the replies.

P.S. I am not sure what type of MH's were used at the store. They are kept in what look like shallow 50 gallon tanks that are all plumbed together. It was at the bottom of there tank... maybe I should lower the BTA... but I always heard they move where they want to go.

 

[dalston]

Yes, ultimatley it will move where it wants to be anyway. IME, BTA prefers a more moderate light, I have had mine move into a more shaded area just to get out of the direct halide. Wether the species demands high lighting or not, they still need to be acclimated slowly to new/more intense light so as not to shock the nem.

I would acclimate it over a couple of weeks, just to be safe, gradually increasing your photoperiod would work. Toddrtrex has what I believe is the best method - screen your lights with 3 layers of black bridal vail, remove a layer every 4-5 days.