BTA - normal? Healthy?

Krch10

New Member
Had this guy for about a month now, no fish in tank currently so feeding him shrimp once a week, just has not seemed to fluff up like other BTA’s I see and only has a hint of green color.

Parameters are good, 0 Amonia, <5 Nitrates, 0 phosphates, Use Rodi water, Temp 79 and Ph 8.1-8.2

Light is Current Marine Orbit LED, high on blue, on for 8 hours. 90 gallon tank.

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Krch10

New Member
Also, he’s now hanging on the underside of the rock, which seems counter the best place for light!! [emoji2359]


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DaveK

Well-Known Member
Your anemone is bleached. In other words, it has lost it's symbiotic algae. This is why it looks almost white. This is a serious condition for an anemone, but sometimes they do recover. What you want to do here is keep an eye on it, and keep it in dim light for now. Don't feed it for a couple of weeks, and then only small amounts of food. BTW, anemones only need feeding about once a week. I'd recommend greatly reducing the intensity of the lighting. Be very careful with partial water changes. Be sure you exactly match the parameters of your current water. You don't want anything else stressing it.

Anemones requite well established, mature, tanks. This usually means the tank should be running about a year and be stable before you even consider an anemone. It's likely too late to return the anemone, so at this point you got to work with what you have. If you see the anemone really retracted for several days, or what looks like "smoke" coming out of it, the anemone is likely dead, and should be discarded. A dead anemone can really foul a tank quickly.

You have also mentioned an algae problem in another post. Don't use any algae remover chemicals in your system. I don't recommend them anyway, but they can put more stress on the livestock, and this is something you don't need right now.

This is usually an uphill battle, but you do have a fighting chance of it recovering. You'll know it's getting better when it starts to get green or brown looking.
 

Krch10

New Member
Thanks for all the info. So if it’s bleached then this means the LFS sold it to me this way?

Yes on the Cyano issue, I have not used any chemicals at this point and just keep carefully removing it. I just can’t figure out why it’s occurring if my water isn’t off.

What a frustrating hobby to grow into!


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DaveK

Well-Known Member
If it was that color when you bought it, then yes the LFS sold it to you that way.

Most SW systems go through a lot of slgse blooms when the are set up. Keep fighting it. You will likely need to use several methods to do so. Don not thing that because your test results seem ok, that you do not have a nitrate and/or phosphate issue. In many cases the algae is consuming them and growing. This gives you a lot of algae and often good test results.

It can be tough at first, but everyone was new once, and all those fantastic tanks you see are the results of people working out problems and getting better at it.
 

Krch10

New Member
Excellent point, never thought that angle through. I’ll keep the water changes going and keep attacking.

Thanks on the BTA, that’s how I got him so disappointed they would do that, but hopefully he can recover.

Thanks again.


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Krch10

New Member
DaveK. - you mentioned not to feed the anemone but without the photosynthesis, wouldn’t this mean that he’s not getting any “energy/food”? It seems to a beginner that this would be the time that they would need fed, so just interest on your advice. Not challenging you just trying to understand.

Thanks.


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Uncle99

Well-Known Member
Squirt some un thawed Mysis at her?
What does she do?

If she does nothing, then feeding wil not work.
 

Krch10

New Member
Tried to but she’s hanging upside down so difficult
To get the shrimp in her tentacles. When she has eaten before I’d put in in the middle and she would slowly close on it.

My rocks are all pinned so I can’t switch that around and I don’t think I should manually move her.

Might need a curved turkey Baster. [emoji35]


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DaveK

Well-Known Member
DaveK. - you mentioned not to feed the anemone but without the photosynthesis, wouldn’t this mean that he’s not getting any “energy/food”? It seems to a beginner that this would be the time that they would need fed, so just interest on your advice. Not challenging you just trying to understand.

Thanks.


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Your anemone is not doing well. It's kind of like a person being sick. They can go a long time without being fed, and feeding just creates possible problems in that it might take in food, and the food rots inside it because it can't digest it. Once it starts to recover, you can feed it lightly. Anemones don't need much food. It might be smaller but should be well formed and be tightly holding onto the rock.
 
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