new to maast with LTA question

[kburwin]

I recently joined the maast website and love everything about it. We have have a 58 gallon Reef aquarium, started about 4-5 months ago. We recently added a Med-LG LTA and wanted to know how you can tell if they are sick or going to die? I know about the anemone egestion and what not, but how do the LTA's look in this process. Just want to make sure that the LTA is okay, so if he is dying, we don't hurt any of the other corals in the tank. Any help would be greatly appreciated. :)

[chrismikea]

sorry i cant answer you question but i want to welcome you to maast

[MattK]

Same here, no awnser but Welcome

[gjuarez]

THey usually bleach when they are in trouble. Dont know much about them but if it starts disintegrating you should really get it out of there. Anyway, welcome to Maast!

[thedude]

A general way of determining an anemone's health is if the the tentacles are readily sticky, ie: food sticks to them. Anemones also decompose very quickly and will STINK and often turn to a gooey mess. Another good way to determine if the anemone is actually dead is if its mouth is inverted, as this is often a sign of death or trouble. Here's a fairly good anemone resource http://www.carlosreef.com/AnemoneFAQ.pdf

Welcome to MAAST ;)

[::pete::]

kburwin ... http://offthereef.org/images/welcome%20gif.gif

[Sherri]

kburwin...Welcome to MAAST!

[JimD]

Now thay you've been properly greeted..... Egestion is an animals way of expelling eccess unsable nutrients, in this case, zooplankton. Anemone's can look several different ways during the process, anywhere from perfectly normal to a shrunken mass of undulating, blobulous puke, typicly though, they look normal, possibly slghtly less inflated. What makes you think it might be dieing? A pic would help mucho. Are there any white "spaghetti" like filiments protruding from its mouth? If so,,,, say, bye bye!

[kburwin]

I don't have any pics, but the reason we were worried was because his mouth was open more than not and he was expelling brown clumps of stuff. We have not seen any spaghetti like filaments and the color is orange to bright red in the foot and the tentacles have a mixture of brown, purple and yellow to white. We are just relatively new to reef keeping and wanted to make sure we knew when we had a problem.

Thanks all for the welcome and the help.

[Sherri]

Sounds like eliminating waste to me. I'd keep an eye out for any body structure breakdown - if so, then get back with us...it's prob dying at that point. When I had my RBTA, it would slightly deflate when eliminating. A pic is always helpful. Also, is it staying put or moving around? Good luck.

[kburwin]

It is staying put but won't bury into the sand. He just holds on on the top of the sand, but otherwise is staying put even with a good bit of current. Things in general look good from a color perspective, but still don't like the mouth open so much. Will let you know if things change and again thanks for all the info.

[GaryP]

Welcome to MAAST. Typically a LTA won't burrow into sand. It will try to attach to something solid like live rock. It likes to attach its foot into a hole and extend its tentacles out into the flow. What are you feeding it? I prefer to use something like krill or silversides. The fact that it isn't moving around is a good thing. If its not moving, its happy where it is. Also remember that they like a fair amount of light as well.