BTA dying?

well i got a small BTA about a week ago and it was doing good for about 4 days. attached to a rock had a clarkii hosting it, just all around looked healthy. until 2 days ago. it detached , shriveled up and rolled around the tank, has now stopped and is upside down with it foot sticking up. my question is should i let it be? Is it to late to do anything for it? Is there anything i can do? i havent been able to keep an anemone alive yet my tank has been up for a year, it is a 30 gallon , running 130 watt pc's 20 lbs live rock , temp =79-80 all water parameters are good , canister filter and a nano in tank wet dry. i did not have a protein skimmer but i picked one up today thinking that might help the situation alittle bit. any help would be appreciated thanks

 

Anenomes overall are fairly hard to keep long term and require experienced care. You may have just gotten a bad one or it could just not have taken to the new tank. If it's upside down and just floating around, I would take it out. It's probably dead or dying.

 

Maybe the light isn't enough.. Just a thought.. Don't waite too long to get it out..

 

well its not floating its sitting on the sand bed. and it hasnt started falling apart and isnt bleached or lost its (whatever the green stuff in its tentacles is called)

 

usually when an anemone move around a tank and doesn't stay in one place, it means t hasn't found a place where it will be happy. If that's the case, I would try placing it somewhere under the lights and see what happens.

 

does its foot attach when you stick it to a rock? it it doesnt thats not good...also anemone tentacles are supposed to be sticky to the touch if it doesnt stick to you and feels slippery and coated with mucus bad news

 

P/C lighting will not keep any anemones . Thats the short and long of it..

 

I have a BTA also. I started out keeping it under 4x65W PCs in my 72 gal tank. Early on I tried feeding it but everytime I did it moved so I stopped feeding it. It was huge when I got it and eventually shrank to only about 3" diameter. It also detatched and started rolling around the tank. This means it isn't happy and its trying to find a place on the reef that is better suited to its needs. I placed it back on a rock with it's foot in a deep hole. They like to have their foot and stalk (if that's what you call it) protected.

I started looking for answers and determined my nitrate which wah around 25-50 at the time was too high and my illumination was too dim. I went to Lowes and bought a 6500K spiral compact fluorescent bulb (the highest wattage I could find) and a clip on reflector and aimed it at the anemone to give it more illumination. Looks like this

I actually bought 4 of them to supplement the lighting for the entire tank. Long term the PC lighting won't be enough. I would plan on getting T5s or MHs.

I also started feeding the anemone. Additionally I built a fuge and added chaeto algae to get my nitrates down.

Now the anemone is getting absolutely huge. It's about 10" across.

My BTA has never felt sticky to the touch at least to me. Maybe my skin is too dry or something. But even now when it is healthy it doesn't feel sticky to me. My tomato clown feeds the anemone and whenever the food hits the tips of the tentacles it sticks.

Your anemone may be too unhealthy to capture food. So take like a 1/4 cube of frozen Formula One food that is thawed or a small piece of raw shrimp and place it near its mouth. Then rub its tentacles to get the anemone to close around the piece of food and eat it. If you have shrimp in your tank you'll have to keep it away from your anemone while it is eating otherwise it will reach into the anemone and steal its food.

I wouldn't pull it out just yet. I saw mine come back to thrive. Just keep an eye on it and be ready to pull it out if it dies.

Good luck.

 

We had one for about a year under pc lights just fine however we fed it 3x's a week. It is huge. We have since added MH not for the BTA but for the SPS that a fellow club member kept giving to me.

 

Under proper lighting anemones need no feeding at all , And it can take some anemones a long time to decline and then die like with clams it can take months to over a yr.. But long term I have never seen P/C's keep anemones alive and flourishing , But put them under M/H and then you will see how they are supposed to look.

I had a 4 " RBTA to take up 1/2 of a 180 with in 2 yrs and it was never fed other then what flakes or food it could catch it was under 400W 10 K ushios M/H's . It was splitting every few months .. Feeding anemones can really cause water pollution in the tank.