AndyR83
Community Member
Situation:
This BTA looked decent at first, but has steadily declined during the time I have had it in my tank. I initially thought I may just need to give it some time to adjust since I’ve read they tend to exhibit odd behaviors periodically, but it hasn’t rebounded. It now looks significantly worse.
Background:
The nem was purchased from PetCo about 10 weeks ago. The tank it came from wasn’t particularly appropriate for a BTA (weak lighting and not much water flow) but I didn’t think it looked much worse for the wear so I decided to take a chance on it. It picked a spot high in the tank with strong lighting and water flow on the first day it was added and has remained there ever since. I initially fed it mysis once or twice per week which it readily accepted. It gets some attention from my domino and frosty clown occasionally, but I definitely wouldn’t say this behavior occurs regularly enough to call it “hosting.”
Over the past month and a half, I’ve seen a marked decrease in its color. It now appears bleached to me. Its tentacles are also very short and stubby and it appears deflated about 75% of the time. I thought these may be signs of starvation, especially since bleaching may have occurred. Suspecting this, I increased feeding attempts to daily or every other day. It frequently will not accept food at this point, instead leaving the mysis in its mouth loosely for a few minutes until it floats away and demonstrating no effort whatsoever to eat
Initial Picture:
6-7 weeks after adding:
Current state (10 weeks after adding)
Current state under blue lights (included to demonstrate lack of fluorescence):
Assessment:
I’m wondering if the change in lighting may have been the root cause of this situation. I welcome any insight and recommendations this group may have to share.
Thanks in advance!
This BTA looked decent at first, but has steadily declined during the time I have had it in my tank. I initially thought I may just need to give it some time to adjust since I’ve read they tend to exhibit odd behaviors periodically, but it hasn’t rebounded. It now looks significantly worse.
Background:
The nem was purchased from PetCo about 10 weeks ago. The tank it came from wasn’t particularly appropriate for a BTA (weak lighting and not much water flow) but I didn’t think it looked much worse for the wear so I decided to take a chance on it. It picked a spot high in the tank with strong lighting and water flow on the first day it was added and has remained there ever since. I initially fed it mysis once or twice per week which it readily accepted. It gets some attention from my domino and frosty clown occasionally, but I definitely wouldn’t say this behavior occurs regularly enough to call it “hosting.”
Over the past month and a half, I’ve seen a marked decrease in its color. It now appears bleached to me. Its tentacles are also very short and stubby and it appears deflated about 75% of the time. I thought these may be signs of starvation, especially since bleaching may have occurred. Suspecting this, I increased feeding attempts to daily or every other day. It frequently will not accept food at this point, instead leaving the mysis in its mouth loosely for a few minutes until it floats away and demonstrating no effort whatsoever to eat
Initial Picture:
6-7 weeks after adding:
Current state (10 weeks after adding)
Current state under blue lights (included to demonstrate lack of fluorescence):
Assessment:
- Tank age is approximately 8 months
- Parameters are closely monitored and very stable.
- 55 gallons of RO/DI filtered well water prepared with Instant Ocean reef crystals
- Lighting includes two fixtures that are run simultaneously:
- Current USA Marine Orbit LED 46 watt
- Fluval Sea Marine & Reef 3.0 LED 59 wayt
- Last partial water change (approximately 50%) performed 8 days ago
- Copepods added about every 4 - 6 weeks
- 20ml Oceanmagik phytoplankton daily
- Temp 77 - 78F
- Salinity 1.023 - 1.024SG
- pH 8.1 - 8.2
- Ammonia 0ppm
- Nitrite 0ppm
- Nitrate 0 - 10ppm
- Alkalinity 13-15dKH
- Calcium 420-440ppm
- Blue Damsel
- Cloudy Damsel
- Domino Damsel
- Two Stripe Damsel
- Yellowtail Damsel
- Diamond Watchman Goby
- Mandarin Dragonet
- Frosty Clownfish
- Bennett’s Pufferfish
- Rose Bubble Tip Anemone (which is thriving)
- Turbo Snails
- Hermit Crabs
- Emerald Crab
- Peppermint Shrimp
- Various Zoas
- Alveopora
- Leptoseris
I’m wondering if the change in lighting may have been the root cause of this situation. I welcome any insight and recommendations this group may have to share.
Thanks in advance!
