Massive tank crash...Poo

[pagan.n.damaged]

you forgot when the BTA ate a few of them. I still say we're gonna play heck with them not eating the shrimp.

[Bill S]

Xenia, when they melt, can be EXTREMELY toxic. They pick up and store all sorts of "stuff" from your tank - things that would normally be exported thru water changes. When they die, they release all of this at once, which can easily pollute your tank. Xenia crashed my daughter's nano a couple of years ago.

As for your six line - they can do a disappearing act, like all wrasses. Either into the rock/sand for a few weeks, or over the top. They are amazing jumpers.

Salt really only has to be mixed until the water is clear. I do this ALL THE TIME, without problems. In my daughter's nano, it gets a 50-60% water change about every 3 weeks - everything does just fine in that tank.

BTW, BTAs can be real polluters too - I almost never feed mine, and this helps.

[Texreefer]

Sorry to hear this. sounds to me like a very new system had an ammonia or nitrite spike. Inverts can be sensitive to this and salinity swings

[barderer]

did you check the temps. Xenia nuke quick with high temps.

[drgnbttrfly]

Temp was stable and ammonia and nitrite had been reading zeros again. I had a nitrate spike...small one...with the algae bloom...but it was when my filter was down for a day because of repairs...my skimmer was working.

Gah I dunno. The tank had established rock and sand bed...the sand was from my tank that was a year old.

My pods are all still kickin and my bristle worms too...

I just didnt have a ton of experience with Xenia...it was all doing so well then it just melted.

Lesson learned.

When I feed my BTAs I clean up when they expell...I just figure if I have dead shrimp...they might as well be useful. I have not KNOCK ON WOOD...lost a BTA yet..the one I got as a newbie and found it was dyed...I nursed it for a year and it actually split for me...in this tank a month ago.

I also keep a very close eye on them...where they move...how they eat...when they need a hand...what symbiotes hurt more than help...etc.

I have been really lucky.

Pagan...the shrimp that we thought the BTA ate were the ones that were alive but hiding...until yesterday.

[Bill S]

MOST BTAs are grossly overfed - leading to or adding to tank pollution. I have one in my daughter's nano that's ALWAYS hungry, 'cause it's rarely fed. The nano can't take the expelled leftovers from a silverside!

[ErikH]

Bill has a ton of RBTAs. I would definitely watch feeding them and take Bill's advice as gold. Water quality changes dramatically in small(er) tanks.

[drgnbttrfly]

My BTAs are in a 125...cept my baby who is in a ten...but the foot is smaller that a quarter and it filter feeds and catches what the stupid clown drops.

My bleached (creepy ghost white) one was the only one in the tank at the time of the crash and it really doesn't eat...you could put food on it and it would drop it. When it has the porceline crab though it continues to grow.

Its back in the 125 now. Because of the reorientation of light it has moved some...but I have no powerheads in the at risk area there and they have MH lighting available. My one maroon and anemone crab host two large BTAs and one small one...the white one having just been tossed back into the tank...currently has no symbiote but the clown and crab wander...so he will get visits.


I don't normally feed them...it was a treat. The one that ate the peppermint loaded with eggs hasn't had that kind of bubble since we got it...It expelled a bit of slime and it was easy to use a syringe to clean up.

[JimD]

I have 6 bta's and feed them maybe once every couple of months months.... Splitting is not necessarily an indication of good health, actualy, in a captive environment its usualy a reaction to stress.

[drgnbttrfly]

Believe it or not that makes sense...when it split..I thought it was because it was trying to move away from the larger two BTAs and got snagged and sort of involuntarily split itself.

I just assumed it was a good thing...both pieces are doing well though.

Under lower lighting (T8) I used to have to hand feed my small BTA once in a while when it got green around the gills but it would take one flake of low phosphate food...and it was good...not generally whole shrimp..;)

I learned it needed a flake about every 7 days under that lighting not the three days a week I had originally read when I got them. Under the MH lights they need almost nothing.

As a matter of fact one got ahold of a piece of Krill I was feeding to an emerald and it actually seemed to cause more problems than it was worth...but the larger BTAs I have in the tank now are ummm 3-4" in diam...the shrimp were just gone!