My RBAT hates life

This morning I came out to a shock . . . my HUGE RBTA decided it no longer wanted to live and made a bee line for a MJ1200 that was 2 feet away. Last night it was totally fine, fully extended and looking amazing, and this morning it looks like a smear on the back of my tank.

I turned off the powerhead it was jammed up in and let it be while I was at work. When I got home it had moved back to its rock where it sits now. before it was easily 14" across with tentacles around 6-7" long, now its around 3-4" with 2-3" tentacles. It's kinda behind and underneath its favorite rock, so I cant really get a pic of it and I really dont want to disturb it at all.

Anything special I should be doing, or is leaving it be the best thing for it?

Thanks

~Will.

 

I don't know much about nems except they can nuke a tank when they die and can be exceptionally hardy at times. I would watch it carefully and remove it if it looks like it is going to die.

 

My buddy had the same problem. Went and bought a huge RBTA and had it for about a week and then it decided to go for a stroll around the tank one night and got sucked in to a koralia 4. But it survived and he now has two small rbta's.

 

is it spewing anything? does it look alive? ive seen huge nems get torn up from a softball to a penny and come back! hows everything else in the tank? everything okay

 

Everything in the tank seems fine, so I guess it hasn't died yet. The RBTA is stayed in the same spot all night, and all I can see of it are some inflated tentacles. What really pisses me off is this thing was in a mixed reef and stayed put for over a month, then after I get 3/4 of my livestock and rock out and put it on its own rock island THEN it decides to go for a stroll.

At the very least it will fit better in the new 25 gallon I have in the works.

~Will.

 

Yes, yes......this is what they do. They are an animal and will do what they want. This is why those of us who have tried one do just that....try ONE! They can be a pain. I heard too many horror stories like one guy here who said his stayed put for months only to find one morn that it decided to venture around and stung 3 of his real expensive coral. If attempting to keep one you must be prepared for that and you must use netting or other ways to insure it can not get into any power head, filter etc.

 

The new tank will be as anemone proof as possible. 0 powerheads in the tank, and the only drains will be from a center overflow, and 2 rear corner secondary drains I'm putting as far away as possible from the nem. Its definitely worth the hassle of keeping them (to me, anyways), I think RBTA's are beautiful.

He's looking better today, or at least what I can see of him is. I put a bunch of fresh carbon in the tank today just to make sure nothing nasty gets to my corals, and I guess now its just a waiting game.

~Will.

 

Probably about all you can do aside from trying to feed it a bit.