Green BTA turning brown

[Rechelle Fleck]

I have had a green BTA for several months and he was doing well and hosting my female Ocellaris. However, he made a recent move and then another one and started to loose color and turn a brownish/purple color as well as not extending his tentacles. I know this can sometimes be a sign of starvation and I started trying to Target feed him Mysis over the past week. He did relocate to an area that is a little more difficult for food and light to get to him. My clown is desperately trying to get into his tentacles but he doesn't seem to want to host her. The one change I did make to my tank was to upgrade my lighting from CF to LEDs and I did have a small nitrate spike (20 ppm) when my 6 Line died. I dose with iodine so I know that's not the problem and my tank runs around 79-80 degrees (cat chewed cord to thermometer ). I should also add that my tank is more than a year old just so someone doesn't give me the new tank lecture.

What else can I do for this poor dude.

 

[hdsoftail1065]

It sounds like your light change could be a contributing factor. What kind of lights did you go with? Possibly a difference in PAR? What else is in your tank and parameters?

@Amoo

 

[theKoolAidMan]

Nems are all about consistency. I would venture that the lighting change ticked it off. The nitrate spike may not have helped. 20ppm isn't very high, but it's more the rapid change that they hate. I can tell if something changed quickly in the tank by the state of my BTA, even something harmless like the temp going from 78 to 79.5 too quickly that nothing else in the tank cares about.

 

[DFR]

Hey, if you have additional tank parameters, that woul help in figuring out what could be stressing out this little guy.
Generally when I feed anemones I feed larger sized foods than mysis as anemones are “larger” animals. Usually i’ll Just go to the grocery store and grab some fresh raw seafood like shrimp, scallops, etc. But honestly I doubt that is the problem based on the info provided. It’s probably the sudden change in light intensity and/or spectrum.
What I would do is continue to monitor his appearance, and tank for stability. If you changed the light less than a week ago, lower the intensity and slowly ramp it back up over the next couple weeks. I’d try to get some different food and feed him maybe a dime-sized piece (or the size of his mouth) like once a week just in case it isn’t getting enough energy from your light source. I found anemones to be very hardy but succeptible to stresses from large parameter swings. Definitely keep us updated and good luck.

 

[Amoo]

Did the Nem start turning brown before or after you changed lights?

Did he start moving before or after you changed lights?

What light do you currently have and what are your settings?

 

[Rechelle Fleck]

It sounds like your light change could be a contributing factor. What kind of lights did you go with? Possibly a difference in PAR? What else is in your tank and parameters?

@Amoo

Nitrites/Ammonia - 0
Salinity - 1.025
Nitrate - 20ppm (doing water change tomorrow)
Phosphate - 0.1 (after 1 fish and 1 hermit dying in tank)
Alkalinity - 8.4

Right now I only have a BioCube 29 (don't laugh, I plan on going bigger when I can) and it came with compact florescents. I replaced the hood with the LED upgrade and gradually upped my light schedule to the following:

Lunar/Blues: 7:00am-10:30pm
Daylight/Whites: 9:00-9:00
BeautyMax: 8:30am -9:00pm

This gives a lighting range of 12-25,000K. If it were too much (and I did amp up time over a period of weeks) I would think he would bleach, not turn brown.

 

[Rechelle Fleck]

Did the Nem start turning brown before or after you changed lights?

Did he start moving before or after you changed lights?

What light do you currently have and what are your settings?

He started moving right before the lighting change and it was then I noticed him starting to change colors. My light settings are in my post above. When I was running CF lighting I noticed he was trying to "look" for a better place and then when I changed it, he moved to the impossible to reach place between my LR and glass.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Nitrites/Ammonia - 0
Salinity - 1.025
Nitrate - 20ppm (doing water change tomorrow)
Phosphate - 0.1 (after 1 fish and 1 hermit dying in tank)
Alkalinity - 8.4

Right now I only have a BioCube 29 (don't laugh, I plan on going bigger when I can) and it came with compact florescents. I replaced the hood with the LED upgrade and gradually upped my light schedule to the following:

Lunar/Blues: 7:00am-10:30pm
Daylight/Whites: 9:00-9:00
BeautyMax: 8:30am -9:00pm

This gives a lighting range of 12-25,000K. If it were too much (and I did amp up time over a period of weeks) I would think he would bleach, not turn brown.

Can you breakdown the blues and white to intensity ramp up and down if your lights have that?

 

[Amoo]

So it was moving around and darkening before you changed lights, so you changed lights to try to remedy?

I'm trying to figure out exactly what has happened here, to know where to go, because a nem that was already moving around before changing lights isn't exactly my definition of "doing well" like you originally claimed.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

So it was moving around and darkening before you changed lights, so you changed lights to try to remedy?

I'm trying to figure out exactly what has happened here, to know where to go, because a nem that was already moving around before changing lights isn't exactly my definition of "doing well" like you originally claimed.

One thing to add to this. Being as the nem was moving before the light change, how old was the bulb in the old fixture? I could always tell in my old jbj cube when the bulb needed to be replaced by my nem trying to crawl up rocks or even hide as it didn’t like the spectrum.

 

[cromag27 Verified Sponsor]

leds can be much brighter than cf. did you use a lighting acclimation process? lighting isn’t the only reason nems can move, and nems moving isn’t necessarily a horrible thing. not sure why so many people think so. however, the tentacles on yours are shrinking which is most likely due to starvation. nems get almost all of their nutrients/energy from the zooxanthellae inside of them. if the zoox bails then the nem will starve. why would zoox bail? maybe due to your new lights. zoox is photosynthetic and need proper lighting conditions. nems can also reject zoox from their bodies if the environment has any drastic changes.

so...... there’s really NO way to narrow it down as there can be several contributing factors.

 

[Rechelle Fleck]

Can you breakdown the blues and white to intensity ramp up and down if your lights have that?

The blues and beauty max light do ramp up and down for an hour each

 

[Rechelle Fleck]

One thing to add to this. Being as the nem was moving before the light change, how old was the bulb in the old fixture? I could always tell in my old jbj cube when the bulb needed to be replaced by my nem trying to crawl up rocks or even hide as it didn’t like the spectrum.

The bulbs were brand new before I got the new LEDs.

 

[Rechelle Fleck]

So it was moving around and darkening before you changed lights, so you changed lights to try to remedy?

I'm trying to figure out exactly what has happened here, to know where to go, because a nem that was already moving around before changing lights isn't exactly my definition of "doing well" like you originally claimed.

Let me clarify in that he was just starting to look poor despite new bulbs so I upgraded to the LEDs about 3 weeks ago hoping to help him because I know nems need more light. I was planning on the upgrade already so I did it sooner. So yes, he was doing well for a while, saw him start to change color, changed lighting and now wondering what I can do to help him . I hope that makes sense .

 

[DFR]

leds can be much brighter than cf. did you use a lighting acclimation process? lighting isn’t the only reason nems can move, and nems moving isn’t necessarily a horrible thing. not sure why so many people think so. however, the tentacles on yours are shrinking which is most likely due to starvation. nems get almost all of their nutrients/energy from the zooxanthellae inside of them. if the zoox bails then the nem will starve. why would zoox bail? maybe due to your new lights. zoox is photosynthetic and need proper lightening conditions. nems can also reject zoox from their bodies if the environment has any drastic changes.

so...... there’s really NO way to narrow it down as there can be several contributing factors.

Well said, this was the point I was trying to make. With the info provided at he time it seemed like a light acclimation issue. Anemones will also do fine with low intensity lighting if the primary source of energy/ nutrition is done through feeding. Only thing is that color would not be vibrant at all. I’ve done this for years in the early 2000s on my predator tank before I shut down all my systems.
It seems like your anemone was stressed before the light was even changed. Most likely, what ever caused the wrasse and crab to die was severe enough to affect the anemone also. In this case just try to keep your parameters as stable as you can and I would still supplement with feeding. Your 20ppm nitrate isn’t that bad for the anemone. I would still try to reduce it slowly but the key is stability. And just a heads up, don’t expect him to color back up over night. Providing you get everything stable and the anemone happy, it will take months before you start losing the brown and the green starts to come back.

 

[cromag27 Verified Sponsor]

and something else to throw into the mix..... was this bta wild collected or tank raised?

 

[Rechelle Fleck]

and something else to throw into the mix..... was this bta wild collected or tank raised?

I am not sure. I got him from Saltwater fish.com

 

[Amoo]

Ok, so are you saying, it had a CF light, you figured was old? Tried replacing the bulb in the CF light, that didn't help, so you swapped to the LED and it progressively got worse to where it is now?

So you're on your third light?

 

[cromag27 Verified Sponsor]

I am not sure. I got him from Saltwater fish.com

in my 20+ years of owning/propagating/studying anemones i’ve learned one major lesson - never buy wild caught. their long term survival rate can be slim vs buying a tank raised nem.

i have been able to successfully bring back “starving” btas such as yours but it’s always going to do with luck. the tentacles at this point probably won’t grab onto mysis. if you’re very careful you can try putting a small piece of krill directly into the mouth.

 

[cromag27 Verified Sponsor]

Well said, this was the point I was trying to make. With the info provided at he time it seemed like a light acclimation issue. Anemones will also do fine with low intensity lighting if the primary source of energy/ nutrition is done through feeding. Only thing is that color would not be vibrant at all. I’ve done this for years in the early 2000s on my predator tank before I shut down all my systems.
It seems like your anemone was stressed before the light was even changed. Most likely, what ever caused the wrasse and crab to die was severe enough to affect the anemone also. In this case just try to keep your parameters as stable as you can and I would still supplement with feeding. Your 20ppm nitrate isn’t that bad for the anemone. I would still try to reduce it slowly but the key is stability. And just a heads up, don’t expect him to color back up over night. Providing you get everything stable and the anemone happy, it will take months before you start losing the brown and the green starts to come back.

hit on a good point. anemones can take weeks/months before their visible health can change, better or worse.