Cannot keep a BTA alive!

[dedragon]

Not true. They get everything they need from proper lighting. If lucky they might catch a mysis or 2 a week.

Easier to ignore him jekyl, hes getting mad at a forum thread when people disagree with him, lol.

Trying to get it up with Kalk at the moment. Best so far has been 8.02 yesterday.

You could try a CO2 scrubber or running protein skimmer O2 line outside, not sure if it was mentioned before. Again another non feeder here, I keep some anemones for months at a time in my sump after filter socks and at 5 or below nitrate and they still do fine. I find target feeding them pointless unless you are trying to increase mass and or induce a split, but the amount of food you have also stated you use and the fish load would indicate you wouldnt need to target feed anyway. I would bet they are still getting food.

 

[92Miata]

Not here to do the homework. Just saying that my nems never get fed, and are now 10x the size and the 2 that I had are now 8.

Do you know what the difference is between feeding, and target feeding?

 

[Floyd-]

You could try a CO2 scrubber or running protein skimmer O2 line outside, not sure if it was mentioned before.

I dont have the tank near an exterior wall or anywhere where I could pull fresh air.

 

[Floyd-]

If they did not like it they would move into the shade considering the position of them in your tank, yours have gone to the light....That may well have been "the" issue so its worth keeping tabs on that.

Thats the thought at the moment. I bumped another 5% and they are still up top trying to open up a little. Ill try and get pictures tonight during a water change.

 

[dedragon]

I dont have the tank near an exterior wall or anywhere where I could pull fresh air.

Then a CO2 scrubber might work well for you, it doesnt need any external air.

 

[92Miata]

Easier to ignore him jekyl, hes getting mad at a forum thread when people disagree with him, lol.

No, I'm mad that people can't read, or don't care enough to read carefully.

"Feeding" and "Target Feeding" are different things.

BTAs need solid foods. Whether they need to be target fed is entirely dependent on how much you feed your fish.

 

[Jekyl]

No, I'm mad that people can't read, or don't care enough to read carefully.

"Feeding" and "Target Feeding" are different things.

BTAs need solid foods. Whether they need to be target fed is entirely dependent on how much you feed your fish.

I reed gud enuf. Your nut geting that muh nems barly if at all git fed.

 

[dedragon]

No, I'm mad that people can't read, or don't care enough to read carefully.

There is no reason to get mad here at all. Just easier to leave your info for people to read or not to read rather than get into an argument or make provocative statements. The forum is here to share our experiences with people and leave it to them whether they want to listen or not. Insert something about bees and honey here.

 

[dedragon]

There are probably outside variables we arent thinking about either like a matured tank (which it looks to be pretty mature), or copepods/amphipods being captured by the anemone, feeding them as well.

 

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[Runnin'Reefer]

Why are you people so proud of being ignorant?

Do you know what the difference is between feeding, and target feeding?

At this point, I think you have made this statement about 5 times. You also are not giving any more advice to the OP in this thread and are continuing to just attack everyone else in the thread for being "ignorant." You have gotten "mad" at people for not being able to read. Yet, there have been several people throughout this thread, because I just read the whole thing for the last 20 minutes, that have said they do not feed their nems AT ALL. Like they don't feed the tank that the nems are in. That would mean NO food. Show scientific evidence for your claims or stop trying to start a fight over something in someone else's thread who is just seeking help from people are genuinely trying to help and give their experience. OP can do what he wants with what everyone says.

 

[Floyd-]

Agreed. We have covered the feeding thing to death, people are just stating their experiences to help me out and give perspective not to argue.
I believe its lighting issues at the moment considering they keep trying to get as high as possible in the tank.
Someone else mentioned in a conversation at the local shop that it might be because of the leather coral releasing stuff into the tank. I do run carbon in a reactor so I hope that wouldn't be the case.

 

[dedragon]

Agreed. We have covered the feeding thing to death, people are just stating their experiences to help me out and give perspective not to argue.
I believe its lighting issues at the moment considering they keep trying to get as high as possible in the tank.
Someone else mentioned in a conversation at the local shop that it might be because of the leather coral releasing stuff into the tank. I do run carbon in a reactor so I hope that wouldn't be the case.

It is not the leather coral most likely. I have 2 different leathers in my tank (and im sure many others do as well) with no effect on the anemones. Maybe faulty par reading. What lights are you using and how high do you have the hung

 

[Floyd-]

Maybe faulty par reading. What lights are you using and how high do you have the hung

I have reefbreeder lights (32" and 16" to cover the 50" tank) at 13" off the water I believe it was. At the moment im running 75% blues 37% white and 7% green and red.

Lights combined at 100% would be 345watts

 

[Jekyl]

FWIW I have 2 kessil 360s at 95% intensity and my nems are as close as they can get. Once acclimated they can handle a ton of light.

 

[dedragon]

I have reefbreeder lights (32" and 16" to cover the 50" tank) at 13" off the water I believe it was. At the moment im running 75% blues 37% white and 7% green and red.

Lights combined at 100% would be 345watts

Jekyl is right that they can handle a ton of light, but i also dont think you are running low par by any means. I dont run reefbreeder lights though so hopefully someone can help you with those settings if they are off at all

 

[hart24601]

I have only limited bta experience as I have previously avoided them, but a friend gave me a CSB and it’s too pretty for me to say no!

I feed the tank like crazy but it didn’t really look good until I started spot feeding it pellets every couple days. It looks fluffy and full for several days after feeding and deflates when I forget to feed it.

no clue on if it’s needed, not entering the debate, I am just adding my experience with a bta that looked pretty bad and I thought would lose it until I started feeding directly.

 

[Kerbash]

Here is a couple of experience I had with nems, just my personal experience, my journey from not being able to keep a BTA alive to now where I have pretty much every commercially available anemone species at this point. Maybe you can gleam something useful from it.

1. The first 6 years of keeping a reef tank i had a really hard time keeping any anemones alive, tried 6 times died within a couple of weeks every single dang time. Every time they settle in looks good for a couple of days, ate some frozen silverside, then in a couple of weeks they just wither away and died. The only anemone I managed to keep alive was a rock flower anemone. Until one day, I fed my rock silverside, which I only fed to my BTA so far, within a couple of days, my massive rock flower, started to die, his stomach flipped and he died. Thats why I dont ever buy silverside anymore.

2. I had a biocube for 3 years, where every single anemone I put inside wither and dies, always thought it was the water or something, but one day, when i tore down the tank. Moved the rocks to my clown fish tank with a couple of BTA that I had for years. Within a couple of weeks they all died. Im pretty sure it was due to some bacteria that present in the tank and when i transferred it to the clown tank the bacteria or whatever pathogen traveled with the rock to the tank killing all anemones. I cleaned up everything cure the rocks qt the fish and once again anemones no problem.

3. This applies especially to wild caught anemones especially from less reputable sources, like petco and stuff. I use to have a maybe 50/50 survival rate with anemones from petco, until I tried the antibiotic treatment method, seriously its a life saver. I have a carpet nem that looked like mush comeback to life with ciproflaxin. Once thing that I have noticed as well is that when an anemone is infected necrosis happens in the stomach and the foot first.

4. Just a side note, when i buy nems, the thing that I always ask is is the tentacle sticky and if the foot is attached, I have never lost a nem that is doing both.

Also just my input in my experience an anemones that is starving, slowly shrink and when I say slow I do mean slow, and the first that goes is the tentacles, it gets shorter and shorter. Stomach should never protrude if its starving, they start to look like a dish. I had a sebea that got covered by a monti once, and it took him like 2 months + without feeding to shrink.

 

[Mjl714]

How’s the bta?

 

[dwest]

I had BTA’s for over 20 years. They reproduced very well and would have taken over my 180 gallon reef if I would have allowed. And then I got dinos. Every BTA died within a few months. So I’m wondering if it’s possible that you have dinos?

As fas as lighting goes, mine thrived through low light (under 100 PAR) situations and higher lighting (300-400 plus PAR). So I would leave lighting wherever it’s at and not adjust. I have not spot fed any corals or anemones for over 20 years. But have always had lots of fish that I feed.