BTA help!

[Mwhitedesigns]

Good afternoon,
I have a BTA that I’ve had for a few months now. But recently it’s been looking very sad.

Params are all as expected so i am at a loss of what to do.

the other week it started wandering around. Not very inflated. It pickeda spot under an arm of my grape cristata. It stayed there for 3 days before i got a bit worried and moved it. I carefully removed it from the rockwith a cred card and moved it to its current spot. I turned off the pumps andit stuck it’s foot it a crevice fairly quickly. The flow is moderate and it seemed to like it at first and started to expand some again.

however that was short lived. It’s shrank to about the size of a nickel and it seems as though his mouth is out. It still has decent color but it’s not filling up at all now. I tried feeding it some mysis but it’s not taking anything. It’s still alive. Just the tiny bit of touching when trying to spot feed it made it draw its tenticals in even further and the foot is still sticking strongly to the rock.

Thoughts? Help?

 

[ihavecrabs]

Well, you might have pinched the foot getting it off a rock with a credit card. Most of the time that trick is only used for glass. I tend to use my finger and nail to remove from a rock.

My advice would be to leave it be. It’ll know the right spot to go to for healing it if starts moving and will inflate when it is comfortable.

HTH

 

[Mwhitedesigns]

Thanks for your input. I was extremely careful and tried not to injure the foot. Started at the edges and gently peeled away until it let go. It seemed to come off without injury. I’m definitely going to let it sit. I was just worried that it was dying or something.

 

[ihavecrabs]

They can be temperamental but are very hardy. I wouldn’t be terribly concerned.

 

[AdamB]

Agreed to let it be for a while. One time A while back I introduced a RBTA into my tank. It moved first night and went down my overflow and somehow wound up into the refugium part of my eshopps r 300 sump? Little pieces of it scattered in my fuge.
I got anemone back in display and watched to see if it would attach. It looked very bad and did. I thought it would not make it but to my surprise it took hold on a rock and expanded! Still doing great so they are much tougher than I ever expected !

 

[Mwhitedesigns]

Wonder what the closed inside out mouth indicates?

 

[j.falk]

That thing is definitely not happy. My advice, leave it alone. The more you mess with it the more you will make things worse. At this point it will either survive or it won't...but the best course is to leave it alone.

And don't ever try to take it off a rock again like that. If you want it off a rock, take the rock out of the tank, flip it upside down over a bucket of tank water and wait for the anemone to fall off the rock. Works like a charm every time.

 

[User]

That thing is definitely not happy. My advice, leave it alone. The more you mess with it the more you will make things worse. At this point it will either survive or it won't...but the best course is to leave it alone.

And don't ever try to take it off a rock again like that. If you want it off a rock, take the rock out of the tank, flip it upside down over a bucket of tank water and wait for the anemone to fall off the rock. Works like a charm every time.

What do you recommend for when you can’t take the rock out of the tank?

 

[j.falk]

What do you recommend for when you can’t take the rock out of the tank?

Take a power head and aim it directly at the anemone. They don't like strong direct currents and will move.

An ice cube on their foot will also make them move but that can be tedious/time consuming.

 

[sarcophytonIndy]

What type of lighting do you have? How are your other nems/corals looking?

 

[Mwhitedesigns]

I do need to upgrade lighting at some point but i was holding off because it was doing well. I have a current USA led pro. my other corals are doing great. Montipora digi has grown a lot. The grape cristata that the anemone moved under is doing great and growing. The pipe organ i have has more than quadrupled in size. Zoas have more than quadrupled in size from a 5 headed frag. Everything else seems super happy.

 

[sarcophytonIndy]

I know my RBTAs are real light lovers and will start to wander if they don't like the lighting.

 

[j.falk]

Lighting is everything to anemones...that issue should have been addressed before obtaining the anemone. Without the proper lighting, the anemone won't survive long term.

 

[Mwhitedesigns]

It’s been in the tank for months now and it has been great. This just started happening recently. Here is a pick i took a bit ago.

i just rechecked params and everything is still normal.

salnity 1.026
Temp 78.3
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Ph 8.1
Phosphate .02
Use reef crystals