BTA in Nano Tank

[Rowan Savage]

hi,
I have a 12g nano tank and i was going to my lfs to get an BTA for my clowns but he said that the tank was too small and it can eat my firefish. Im just confused as i have seen many youtube videos with BTA in tanks smaller and have never heard of them eating other tank enhabetants, i like would just like a seconed opinion on it.

thanks in advance

 

[ScottR]

hi,
I have a 12g nano tank and i was going to my lfs to get an BTA for my clowns but he said that the tank was too small and it can eat my firefish. Im just confused as i have seen many youtube videos with BTA in tanks smaller and have never heard of them eating other tank enhabetants, i like would just like a seconed opinion on it.

thanks in advance

You can do it - I’ve seen it. I’ve also seen it fail. Anemones a finicky about placement and light. They also need near perfect parameters which is why it’s best to have a tank that is well-established; meaning, it’s not just recently cycled and untested.

All of the nems I’ve had, walked around my tank until they found a place they liked. Even made home on my zoa frags. So your LFS was being honest to say the least. They’d usually sell you a shark to put in a 2 gal nano if you’d buy it.

Now with that said, if you truly are an experienced reefer, you can pull it off. But trust me, it’s not as easy as it looks.

 

[User1]

The problem is the size of the tank, then total water volume. BTA's can get large when they expand tip to tip. Thus the LFS saying it may be a bit small.

I had one in a 29 gallon biocube. It started small then over a year or so grew pretty large. Tip to tip it was pushing 12+ inches across. One day I woke up in the morning and couldn't find it. Later that day I had two. It split. Two became three, then four, then five. You get the pattern. I added a 2nd 29 gallon bio cube to split them up but that didn't work. So merged those tanks into a 40 breeder and they held somewhat steady at 7 or 8 total. They got too big so ended upgrading to a 210 gallon tank last April and now at 11.

They get large. They can expand. They take up space. They can split. I would not recommend in a small nano. It will limit what else you can put in there.

 

[ScottR]

I know it’s easy to chase the Nemo and anemone relationship. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. I’ve had various nems with clowns. And my clowns preferred my torch corals over the nems. Just because you get a BTA or other nem, doesn’t mean your clown will host it

 

[TankLife86]

This is my 15gal waterbox and I happen to have 2 bullet hole clowns that love to host their nems.

 

[ScottR]

This is my 15gal waterbox and I happen to have 2 bullet hole clowns that love to host their nems.

How did you get the nems into those perfect locations? I’m assuming not glued...

 

[TankLife86]

How did you get the nems into those perfect locations? I’m assuming not glued...

I've had the center rock in my display tank for a while and I wanted to do something with it so I did the aquascape first then put 8 bubble tips in on top of the rock for about a week so they can find their sweet spots then I added the rest of the corals to make sure they dont get stung.

 

[Rowan Savage]

thanks for your input, ill probably just leave it.