whats wrong with my BTA

[eleyan]

My BTA has not been looking too good recently. its been shriveled up for the past 3-4 weeks. I treated the tank with no-ich about that time, which is supposed to be reef safe (does not contain copper or malachite green, similar to kick-ich). I've used it in the past with no problems. Most of my soft corals (fiji leather, kolt, xenia, candy cane) and clam did not look bothered during the treatment. The BTA and some of my mushrooms, frogspawn and hammer coral closed up though. The only other thing that happened around the same time is that a flame scallop and a small fish died while I was on vacation, and I never found them. .After the treatment I did a large water change (35%). most of the closed up corals opened up back again. The hammer is still not fully opened, but it looks OK. The BTA on the other hand never recovered. It's been about 2 weeks since I did the water change and its still closed up. It moves around quite a bit now.

I tested the water and everything looks fine:

ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 5ppm (first band above 0)
ph 8.4
Ca 380
dkh 10
phosphates < 5ppm

I added some carbon and put the skimmer in full blast after the treatment as well. I don't know what else to look for. I'll try to do another water change this weekend in case there is still something in the water I'm not catching

[Tim Marvin]

The tank looks pretty dim. It may just be slowly dieing from lack of light..... They usually need at least 150watts in a 55 gallon tank to just survive. I wouldn't use anything less than 2-96w quads in a smaller tank. Halides and VHO work best for these guys and pristine water. How much light are you running? Refugium? Skimmer type? Nitrates should be zero, phosphates need to be lower also. Anemones do poorly in phosphates. Do some more water changes and get the phosphates at 3ppm or less.

[eleyan]

I have 220W PCs (2 10k + 2 50/50) I have a Tunze skimmer and some macro algae in my overflow. Its heard to read the phosphate color in my testkit. it looks like its somewhere between 0-5ppm. I thought BTAs were not as demanding light wise.

[eleyan]

I never had to spot feed it in the past. It used to grab some of the food when I feed my fish. I just tryed to spot feed it right now and it didn't grab the food it just closed up more. my flower anemone took it right away.
If it is dying, does it release poisons into the water? is that why some of my other corals are not oppeing up?

[eleyan]

I had some krill and squid left over from the eel I used to have. I tryed the krill, I'll try the squid next

[Tim Marvin]

SOunds like everything is fine. I'm still a little concerned about the nitrate??? Something is going on there. Phosphates may be a problem. Lighting and filtering sounds good. Sometimes they will do this for a couple days, but usually start acting normal again.... Oh,, What is the water temp? has it gone up from the heat lately? They will react like that when the tank is above 82 degrees in my experience.

[eleyan]

Its been around 78-81. I haven't noticed it jump any higher than that.

[Tim Marvin]

Well, it still doesn't look like it is dieing. When it looks like spaghetti is in the mouth then there is a problem. I would say do another water change and wait a couple days.

[mharris7]

The real trick to a healthy bta is feeding. They like light but photosynthesis really only provides short term energy sources. Proteins for growth, healing ect.... HAVE to come from feeding. I fed mine directly on a daily basis, it usually ate a whole cube of mysis per day. It grew to about a foot in diameter, and then I had to trade it into Aquatek. Your light seems like it should be decent (mine was under halides though)

Side note - I had a bta get all droopy like that before it split (the above mentioned anemone was a clone...)

My personal opinion is that your nitrates are in an acceptable range - nitrates at that low of a level shouldn't be affecting it. The only other thing I suggest is running carbon. Get it to eat if you can though, and I highly recommed target feeding anemones.

-Mike

[eleyan]

Mike, mine is a clone too. I got it from a friend's tank after his split. Do you know how long they shrink before they split if that is the case? The problem with spot feeding it is that it keeps moving and most of the time its in a corner of the tank that I cant reach without moving stuff around.

[mharris7]

Mine split twice - once it would go back and forth from looking good to looking bad for a while. Maybe a couple of weeks. Then it split and looked REALLY bad until it healed. The other time it started looking bad, it split within a day or two.

Regardless of if it moves or not, it has to be fed or it will likely perish. If it's moving a lot its not really happy. Mine moved to get right under the halides and then it didn't budge for ~2years until I traded it in. Even then I had to give them the rock it was on. :D I wonder if your lights aren't bright enough? Even though you have a lot of wattage, if a lot of it is actinic then your light intensity may still not be enough. If you had 220 watts of 10000k light that would be good. If you only have 110watts of 10000k and then 110 watts of actinic that may not be enough intensity..... I'm purely guessing about that being the problem - it's the only thing I can think of.

Good luck - I hope he pulls through whatever is the case. :D

[witecap4u]

There is a good anemone article on reefcentral under the clownfish and anemone forum, i think its a sticky, if not, its called like FAQ for anemones.... The article is like 20+pages I believe. I downloaded it, but skipped around, but it is very long, but good.

cs

[matt]

If it's moving around, it's because it can't find a suitable habitat. This might be really stressing it out. If it was stationary for a while and then started moving, probably something in the flow or light changed.

[Instar]

You treated the tank a couple times, so there are things to consider now. That not only interrupts some of the ick, it also interrupts the bacterias and symbiotic microbial life in your tank and creatures like the BTA. There were numerous symbiotic bacteria and algae in the anemone. The bacteria in your tank can be reseeded with some kind of culture and then not use medications again. NH3,NO2,NO3 should all be 0 (and can be if you have a good bacteria population) and phosphate <0.5. If your kit is only capable of <5 reading, then it sounds like someone sold you the wrong kind of kit for a reef tank. Providing the water is good (RO/DI used for top offs, etc) the anemone can recover its symbiotic life. It can take some time though and there will have to be plenty of blue light for it in the meantime. Other things such as flatworm exit, joes juice, aerosols used in the home, cigarette smoke, paint fumes, a fireplace (puts out carbon monoxide), etc. can also affect the symbiotic life in the anemone and can lead to its demise. Good luck, I hope its only one of those cyclic things its going thru and it recovers.

There is never really enough information in one of these messages to really solve the problem. Not knowing what you or anyone reading this uses, this may bear commenting: Using tap water for top offs will eventually lead to the concentration of the pollutants in our water because they don't evaporate from the tank. Those include some heavy metals that are deadly to reef life such as copper. In tap water its below the acceptable level and therefore safe for drinking water, but, it is one of the pollutants in our aquifer water. Some of the pollutants are absorbed and detoxified. For a while. Sooner or later they saturate the cycle and make it into an area of the tank substrate where the pH is low and then are returned to the water column or they hit a kalc drip and are freed in the high pH area to act again on whatever is in the tank. RO/Di (for top offs and mixing) and good brands of salt mix are the only safe way to go.

[Tim Marvin]

Instar hit it on the head! Any detectable NH3, NO2, and NO3 is detrimental to the anemones health.. BTA's require as much intense 10k light as they do actinic, so a good mix will help. Maybe change one of your bulbs for a pure actinic bulb. Then just wait for the dust to settle after all the treating and such. If you question weather it will live you can bring it by and I will babysit for you. I have brought back more than one anemone from a near death experience.....LOL..... I am currently growing a RBTA and a green/purple equadracolor under two 96w quad pc's in the cube tank. They are fed 4-5 times per week.

[Andrew]

After keeping a bta, I'm not sure light had as much to do with its' well being as the occaisional feeding and pristine water conditions. I kept mine under two 20 watt bulbs over a 29, a daylight and actinic, and it thrived (only 2 small fish, also). I've seen other similar setups with success, but also, those under blazing MH that appear to do equally well. It's too bad that each specimen doensn't come with a brief description of the habitat collected from, such as depth, current, fore-reef, lagoon, etc.

It is my opinion after reading many books and seeing first hand the "melting" of many anemones of all types including bta's at lfs's, that these animals should probabaly not be sold, especially to beginners (less than several years experience in the hobby).

Andrew

[Tim Marvin]

I have noticed my RBTA's do better under the 2-96 watt quads in the 30 gallon tank than the 700 watts over the 45 gallon.

[scuba_steveo]

i do think the light could be a problem, but i am no expert. I did have a very similar situation though. i bought a BTA and it did great in my 37 gallon under 130 watts pc 50/50 for a while. then it started to fade. all water conditions were fine during this fade period. the bta continued to shrink and deminish until i switched over to 150 W HQI MH. I did this last november. in the past 4 months it has revived very much and is very healty now. almost to the size and color of whem i bought it. when i bought it, it was purple and green, it fades to color less, and now the color has come back. ever since i got it a have feed mainly silversides soaked in selcon about twice a week.

i my case, it was definently a lack of light issue

hope this helps

[Tim Marvin]

Feeding may be as much an issue as good light. I feed at least 3 times a week usually 5-6 a mixture of frozen foods, dry flake, and homemade foods. The anemones take just about anything.