Bta problem

Mil26 · Aug 7, 2018

So I have a Gbta and it’s been expanding in and out but not fully opened like before foot is still anchored and mouth is not open tentacles have been shriveled it has been going for about 4 days now I have done 2 20% water change I have also dosed prime because of nitrate problems. Dosing the prime is when it started to act this way. Tank has been running for 16 months got the anemone about 2 months ago. (Before)

. (After).

Crabs McJones · Aug 7, 2018

If it started doing this when you started dosing the prime I'm wondering if there is something in the prime it doesn't like. What were you dosing prime for? Prime is primarily for chlorine and ammonia. If you're having nitrate issues the best bet would be water changes to bring your levels down and determine the cause of your high nitrates.

Mil26 · Aug 7, 2018

Crabs Mcjones said:
If it started doing this when you started dosing the prime I'm wondering if there is something in the prime it doesn't like. What were you dosing prime for? Prime is primarily for chlorine and ammonia. If you're having nitrate issues the best bet would be water changes to bring your levels down and determine the cause of your high nitrates.

Sorry I didn’t explain it correctly so I had a diatom problem and I have read that Nutrients and silica causes the problem and started to use Phosguard and it didn’t seem to do much and I read online that adding prime to your water changes will help since I use just RO water instead of RO/DI.. so I’m not sure what’s causing the anemone to behave like this.. I also run chemipure blue and about 2weeks ago just added Seachem matrix. Nitrates have gone from 15 to hovering around 5ppm

Mil26 · Aug 7, 2018

Forgot to mention it’s in a 10g IM with 2 Nano clowns

Crabs McJones · Aug 7, 2018

Any perticular reason why you're not running RO/DI water? I'm guessing that since you're only using RO water, your letting nutrients get into your system causeing your algae and diatom oubreaks, and potentially other contaminants as RO membranes don't filter out everything like running an RO/DI does. And anemones are very sensitive to nutrient swings and added chemicals.

Mil26 · Aug 7, 2018

Crabs Mcjones said:
Any perticular reason why you're not running RO/DI water? I'm guessing that since you're only using RO water, your letting nutrients get into your system causeing your algae and diatom oubreaks, and potentially other contaminants as RO membranes don't filter out everything like running an RO/DI does. And anemones are very sensitive to nutrient swings and added chemicals.

I’m just unable to get an RO/DI system at this time. so what should I do now ? Should I do a 50% water change? Or is it bad that I just did a 20% water change 2 days ago

Crabs McJones · Aug 7, 2018

Mil26 said:
I’m just unable to get an RO/DI system at this time. so what should I do now ? Should I do a 50% water change? Or is it bad that I just did a 20% water change 2 days ago

Can you see if your local fish store sells ro/di water that you can purchase? You already have an RO system correct? All you need to do would be add one of these, 40 bucks, and boom make it an RO/DI system.

Mil26 · Aug 7, 2018

Crabs Mcjones said:
Can you see if your local fish store sells ro/di water that you can purchase? You already have an RO system correct? All you need to do would be add one of these, 40 bucks, and boom make it an RO/DI system.

[emoji17]I wish I did but nearest to me is 40min-1hr away

NY_Caveman · Aug 7, 2018

Mil26 said:
[emoji17]I wish I did but nearest to me is 40min-1hr away

You could used distilled water as well from the drug store (distilled, not spring water). If you used that for a bit you could at least determine if your water is at issue. It all starts with the water you use.

Mil26 · Aug 7, 2018

NY_Caveman said:
You could used distilled water as well from the drug store (distilled, not spring water). If you used that for a bit you could at least determine if your water is at issue. It all starts with the water you use.

Ok so I just tried that and did a 50% water change let’s see how it goes

Reefer5640 · Aug 7, 2018

+1 on the RO vs RODI. You can get a clip on DI on eBay for $20-$25. RODI and ATO’s are MAJOR game changers. Not saying you dont use an ATO... but if you dont that is also something that will increase your success with anemones.

Dom · Aug 7, 2018

Mil26 said:
I’m just unable to get an RO/DI system at this time. so what should I do now ? Should I do a 50% water change? Or is it bad that I just did a 20% water change 2 days ago

Small changes. Don't do 50% all at one time.

Day one: 25%
Day two: 10%
Day three: 10%
Day four: 5%

I don't think the nem will take such a drastic change well.

laverda · Aug 8, 2018

Your trying to many things at once and to much it seems to me. I don't think prime should be dosed directly to the tank except for ammonia or chlorine. If you have either you need to figure out why. I can't find my bottle of prime but I though it had some warnings on it. I don't believe it is used for nitrate control.
Anemones like nitrates and can use them as a food source. Some anemone farmers feed nitrates to their anemones. Anemones do that from time to time in my experience. I have had anemones for over 20 years with nitrates ranging for 120 to near zero. They were not happy with zero nitrates and were very shriveled eith their mouths open. They were much happier at 120 than at near zero. I have approximately 15 BTAs in my tank currently with nitrates running at 15-25 for the last 9 months. I have had 2 or 3 get completely different and shriveled for a while, while the others look 100% normal. I was concerned, but I could not find anything wrong with my tank and they returned to normal after 3 weeks or so.
What are your other parameters? What are you feeding your anemone? What lights do you have?