BTA Help!

Hi guys. I bought my first anemone from my LFS about a week and a half ago, a green bubble tip. When I got it from the store, it was a bright green color and very healthy looking. When I put it in my tank after a 2 hour drip acclimation it appeared to anchor itself right away. However it has started to roll itself over and put it's foot straight up. It lays on its tentacles all the time now and doesn't move. It still has it's bright green color but I'm worried that there's something wrong with it or is this just normal behavior. I have a Biocube 29 with the stock lighting, a 36W 10,000K CF and a 36W Actinic CF. All of my nitrate, nitrite, and ammonia levels are at 0 and the temp is holding steady. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Get it out and take back asap. If not just get it out. FYI that is not "healthy" coloring. That is bleached/near death coloring.
Stock lighting in that Bio Cube is not enough for anemones also.

 

anpgp

How long has the tank been set up? Nems prefer very mature water, its not just a case of parameters being in check, they like an aged enviroment

If the nem is not anchored thats a bad sign
if the nem is anchored, feels sticky when you touch it, then there is still hope for it

It may be that its just taking time to adjust to the new tank

although Im not certain , but that lighting does not seem adequate to me for a Nem, I do know BTAs are less demanding than other nem species but with only the 1 daylight lamp in there I have a feeling the nem is laying flat like that as its not aware its daytime?

also are you running carbon ? if not , I would run some now, because they do release a lot of chemicals if they die which can polute your tank badly

Steve

PS - I was still typing when Packleader submitted an even better reply

 

I have seen nems recover from this type of shape but it takes mega expert care that I'm not even capable of. There was a guy on another site was explaining how he did it. He's an old timer who has been around for a long time and focuses on elegance corals and anemones. He took a very healthy bubble tip, placed it very high on the rock and waited for the nem to expel some zooxanthellae. The pulled the zoox up into a syringe and injected this into the unhealthy nems mouth. Once again, just giving you an overview of what kind of nutty care that this would take to bring back to health. Very Very difficult.

 

Steve,

I've had the tank set up for about a year now. As far as it telling if it's day or not, when i first got it, the tentacles would bubble up when the daylight was on and as soon as the lights went out, the tentacles would deflate and become long and skinny. Then in the morning when the lights came back on, it bubbled up right away. And yes, I have been running carbon since the tank was set up.

 

anpgp

OK so tank maturity is probably not an issue here

what esle have you got in there? and how is everything else in there?

Lighting/ habit
As you have only had this Nem a short period, then habit may account for it opening as normal for a few days after introduction it will have got used to an amount of light where it was before and adopted behaviour in fitting with that lighting
when introduced to your set up, it continued behaving in the way it was accustomed to behaving but lately that customary behaviour is bieng dropped in favour to a reaction to its actual conditions at present

( this behaviour can also be seen when corals from different time zones end up in your reef tank - sometimes the polyps on normal day feeders come out at night and vica versa)

There are people with far more experience and knowledge about nems than I have and 2 of them have posted their opinions on this thread already

I believe if this behaviour is only recently manifested then the Nem has a chance of survival , but if it where my Nem, the 1st action I would take, would be to increase the amount of light it gets

but taking it back and trading it for a less light demading species would also be a very good option for you to consider.

Steve

 

I have two ocellaris clownfish, a lawnmower blenny, an arrow crab, horseshoe crab, and a large feather duster right now. I had a peppermint shrimp but when i first put the BTA in, he started picking at the tentacles so i took it out. Everything else is doing great, the clownfish even eats food out of my hand. The thing is, when i got it from the LFS, it was at the bottom of the tank and wide open. It was under a castle ornament where it was getting little light so do you think it might not be used to being higher up and closer to the lights?

 

ok here's what you should do if you are hell bent on saving this guy. I wouldn't but I applaud you for atleast trying. (it was a horrible purchase and I hope you learn your lesson but here we go) Leave the guy alone. Try feeding him maybe a half a silverside a day (keep ur eye on your nitrates) and see if he feeds. He may be a little freaked about the lighting. I do think you have sufficient lighting for the guy if you can get him up high but that's not for you to decide. He will do it when he's ready. All you can do (I'm assuming you are fairly new at this) is try to feed it and keep it as stress free as possible. Don't be trying to move it or even touch it for that matter unless you are feeding. I hope this helps.

 

Thanks, Daniel072. Like I said, I've only had the tank going for a year so yeah, I am kinda new to all of this, especially caring for anemones. I've heard about people bringing theirs back and I'm hoping I can get this one to pull through. I'll keep you updated on my progress.

 

please do and remember there are no such thing as flourescent healthy anemones. Just don't exist