Is my LTA healthy or in trouble?

[Bryanb53]

Recently purchased an LTA. Here are my observations and corresponding questions:

1. He isn't moving around the tank and initially wedged himself between two rocks with his base extending toward but not touching the sand (sorry no pics, but arrangement was similar to a flower in a thin vase where its stem doesnt touch the bottom, if that helps you visualize what I'm talking about). I moved one of the adjacent rocks which he was using as support but not attached to and he moved down to the sand and buried his foot.
-Do LTA's like wedging between rocks to feel secure or are they "trapped" easily by unique structure?

2. Tentacles and base are white but not translucent.
-I've read many a thread that say white anemones are a cause for concern but most of the LTA's I've seen are white. Is this color normal and/or healthy?

3. He chose a location with moderate and indirect current. His tentacles seem pretty lively and he exhibits a strong feeding response when I feed him krill or minced cocktail shrimp.
-Do these observations denote health? Are these foods ideal, adequate, or harmful? I know it depends on lighting among other things, but what feeding schedule is recommended? Once a week? Multiple times a week? Outcomes of each?

4. He somewhat close (~6") to a couple different mushroom colonies.
-Is this ok or do I need to move the shrooms?

To save you guys some time and/or dissuade reefers who like to talk-down to fellow reefers, here are some things I am already fully aware of:
-put simply, anemones are difficult to keep and they're not for newly established tanks -- mines been up for a year (not extremely old but its definitely mature)
-You've got to do your research before getting an anemone -- I've read a few books on the topic and spent more time than I'd like to admit talking to LFS owners and reading forums. I'm posting because I've come across a great deal of outdated, conflicting, and just plain wrong information from all three of these sources.

Tank:
60 gal. cube w/ internal overflow & 20 gal. sump
aquaticlife 4xT5HO fixture
koralia 1050 powerhead
vertex 100 skimmer
200 micron filter sock
carbon

Livestock:
60 lbs live rock
60 lbs live sand (fine)
ocellaris clownfish (small)
green mandarin (smaller)
hippo tang (small)
cleaner shrimp, mithrax crab, assortment of snails and bl. leg hermits
Hammer, frogspawn, various mushrooms, zoanthids

Parameters:
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - not zero but damn close
Sp. Grav. - 1.024
Temp - 78

 

[GrendelPrime]

im not to sure on lta's but i will bump this back to the top and hopefully 1 of the nem people will jump in and help out

 

[Slickcg33]

A picture is worth a thousand words. Many times LFS mislabel BTA's as LTA's just because they have long tentacles. We need to establish what anemone you have first before we can say if its acting strangely lol. A white anemone is never natural its always a sick, or one upon a time sick anemone.

 

[Ganrin]

Recently purchased an LTA. Here are my observations and corresponding questions:

1. He isn't moving around the tank and initially wedged himself between two rocks with his base extending toward but not touching the sand (sorry no pics, but arrangement was similar to a flower in a thin vase where its stem doesnt touch the bottom, if that helps you visualize what I'm talking about). I moved one of the adjacent rocks which he was using as support but not attached to and he moved down to the sand and buried his foot.
-Do LTA's like wedging between rocks to feel secure or are they "trapped" easily by unique structure?

2. Tentacles and base are white but not translucent.
-I've read many a thread that say white anemones are a cause for concern but most of the LTA's I've seen are white. Is this color normal and/or healthy?

3. He chose a location with moderate and indirect current. His tentacles seem pretty lively and he exhibits a strong feeding response when I feed him krill or minced cocktail shrimp.
-Do these observations denote health? Are these foods ideal, adequate, or harmful? I know it depends on lighting among other things, but what feeding schedule is recommended? Once a week? Multiple times a week? Outcomes of each?

4. He somewhat close (~6") to a couple different mushroom colonies.
-Is this ok or do I need to move the shrooms?

1) Long Tentacles are sand dwelling anemones with, in my experience, a preference for the foot buried at the rock/sand interface. Mine initially footed on the rockwork with it's base deep in a crack, but eventually moved to the sand with the base under the rock.

2) Most LTAs will have colored oral disk, colored tentacles, colored upper column with distinct verracue, white mid column and a red foot.
Bleached Starved LTA

Same LTA, 5 months later, in a nontraditional position on top of the rocks.

Dieing LTA, I bought it to try to save it, it lived less than a week. Ive seen a thread about LTAs this color where the consensus was they dont seem to live.

Mine on the rock with the column visible through the rockwork.

3) Moderate indirect current is prefered, lively feeding response is good, mine prefered silversides, but shrimp is good too. Some experienced anemone keepers will not feed silversides at all, they prefer human food grade fish or shrimp.
You can feed as often as a couple times per week or as rarely as once a month. I fed small pieces of silverside,a couple at a time, every week, and the anemone grew fairly quickly. I cut back to once per month and it maintained its size but didnt grow.

4) 6inches of buffer is good for now, if you are feeding heavily and it starts to grow fast you may need to move stuff away from it. LTAs can get close to 18inches in diameter.

The green LTA in this picture is the same anemone as the tiny brown bleached anemone in the first picture. The red was purchased from a local reefer. This picture was taken during the 2 week period both anemones were happy. Soon after this picture was taken the red anemone decided it didnt like the flow where it was, and moved getting caught in the powerhead above it. It was damaged but lived for a couple months before dieing. I changed the flow to try to get the red happy, and the green got upset and moved and was also fatally damaged.

 

[JulesVane]

Here's a picture of my LTA (Corkscrew), just before spawning back in June. I've had it about 8 - 9 months. No direct feeding at all.

Image hosting, free photo sharing & video sharing at Photobucket

 

[Bryanb53]

Hey guys thanks for the replies. Very helpful! Sorry for not posting a picture. I tried taking one with my cell phone and dig. cameral but I keep having trouble getting the image size within the acceptable limit for this forum so I've got some researching to do on the technical problems. Anyway, my LTA resembles the dying(white) one that Ganrin posted. As of late, however, the tips of the tentacles are no longer withered (see Ganrins 3rd photo) and they are becoming increasing speckled with a brownish/redish/perhaps purple-ish color (too early to tell for sure). At first I thought the tentacles may have just been picking up what little detritus is in the tank but the coloration is on the interior tentacles which don't contact the substrate/rock interface in which it is footed. Is it recovering from being bleached (i.e. regaining zooxanthellae)? Other than that, the feeding response is still quite strong, tentacles are active, and water params consistently in check.

 

[Ganrin]

A strong feeding response is a good sign. As counterintuitive as it sounds, feeding requires an investment of energy. The anemone must expend energy to capture and digest food before it gets the return of more energy from the food. Often times very weak anemones can't eat, and must rely on what ever zooxanthellae they still have for energy.