Green BTA turning brown

[Rechelle Fleck]

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?

Third lighting in the tank but second for the nem. I had already replaced the CF bulbs before putting in the BTA. When I switched to LEDs the bulbs were only 2 months old.

 

[Rechelle Fleck]

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.

What is the best way to feed krill to him directly? I don't want to lose him and I certainly don't want his dead body nuking my tank.

 

[Amoo]

Third lighting in the tank but second for the nem. I had already replaced the CF bulbs before putting in the BTA. When I switched to LEDs the bulbs were only 2 months old.

Ok, now we're getting somewhere. Let me make sure I have this right.

You have had the nem for a few months. It sounds like he never really settled in very well. About a month or so ago you noticed the color change and tried replacing the lights hoping that would fix things?

Two additional questions,

how to you handle top offs since it's an all in one cube?

how often do you normally do water changes?

It sounds like poor light quality caused him to start going south and the change to a new light wasn't fast enough to fix it and now there's a compounding problem. What we still need to figure out is if there is anything else going on that accelerated this. What I'm looking to find out is how stable your tank has been over the last 2 months.

 

[Rechelle Fleck]

Ok, now we're getting somewhere. Let me make sure I have this right.

You have had the nem for a few months. It sounds like he never really settled in very well. About a month or so ago you noticed the color change and tried replacing the lights hoping that would fix things?

Two additional questions,

how to you handle top offs since it's an all in one cube?

how often do you normally do water changes?

It sounds like poor light quality caused him to start going south and the change to a new light wasn't fast enough to fix it and now there's a compounding problem. What we still need to figure out is if there is anything else going on that accelerated this. What I'm looking to find out is how stable your tank has been over the last 2 months.

Tank parameters have been consistent and 20% water changes every two weeks .

I do top offs with when needed with RODI water (Red Sea mix at 1.025/1.026) unless evaporation has increased salinity I use fresh RODI. I run a powerhead (Koralia 425), skimmer for nano tank that I empty daily (and clean once a week), clean off filter daily, and I make sure to get the crud off my return pump area before I do a water change.

 

[Amoo]

Well I have two comments that may or may not help.

1. I'm not sure how you determine when to add water, but if you're not adding it at least daily, I would start there. I know when I had the 29 Cube and now my 32 Rimless I evaporate about 10G every 2ish weeks. A half gallon swing per day in a small tank is a LOT in regards to parameters.

2. Based on the age of your tank and your current parameters I would look into possibly increasing your WC frequency to weekly instead of bi-weekly. At 20 Nitrates and .1Poshphate those aren't dangerous levels for BTAs, and I've seen tanks with higher, but I would assume things are trending upwards if you were to chart it over the last 3 months or so.

In my small 32 if I change my water every week my nem stays happy and my numbers stay consistent. If I miss a week and it gets to two weeks, my nems starts looking mad and it's a pretty tell tale sign that he's not happy with the current conditions. I would assume you're experiencing the same thing here.

Secondly, you're going to need to figure out a way to get him to eat. Not sure what you feed, but some LRS/Mysis/Krill...etc, something you can put in a baster and squirt at the mouth once or twice a week would do him a world of good.

Thirdly I would back off on your acclimation and kind of do a reset. If you read through the installation guide for this LED (Which you can find http://stevesleds.info/downloads/biocube-29-coralife-fully-loaded-install-guide-572017.pdf ) you most probably went too fast.

Which kit LED did you upgrade to? Was it the Steve's kit?

 

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What is the best way to feed krill to him directly? I don't want to lose him and I certainly don't want his dead body nuking my tank.

feeding tongs

 

[Rechelle Fleck]

Well I have two comments that may or may not help.

1. I'm not sure how you determine when to add water, but if you're not adding it at least daily, I would start there. I know when I had the 29 Cube and now my 32 Rimless I evaporate about 10G every 2ish weeks. A half gallon swing per day in a small tank is a LOT in regards to parameters.

2. Based on the age of your tank and your current parameters I would look into possibly increasing your WC frequency to weekly instead of bi-weekly. At 20 Nitrates and .1Poshphate those aren't dangerous levels for BTAs, and I've seen tanks with higher, but I would assume things are trending upwards if you were to chart it over the last 3 months or so.

In my small 32 if I change my water every week my nem stays happy and my numbers stay consistent. If I miss a week and it gets to two weeks, my nems starts looking mad and it's a pretty tell tale sign that he's not happy with the current conditions. I would assume you're experiencing the same thing here.

Secondly, you're going to need to figure out a way to get him to eat. Not sure what you feed, but some LRS/Mysis/Krill...etc, something you can put in a baster and squirt at the mouth once or twice a week would do him a world of good.

Thirdly I would back off on your acclimation and kind of do a reset. If you read through the installation guide for this LED (Which you can find http://stevesleds.info/downloads/biocube-29-coralife-fully-loaded-install-guide-572017.pdf ) you most probably went too fast.

Which kit LED did you upgrade to? Was it the Steve's kit?

What is the best way to get him to eat? He is on his own rock (to protect my coral) which can be moved if I need to which is about 13"l x 10"h (at the highest point) x 4" thick. Would it be best to move his rock into the open a bit more to feed him because right now he's wedged himself between the back part of rock and glass making it difficult to target feed.

I am going to try the Steve's reset and see if this helps. My acclimation has not at all harmed my corals (zoas, paly, duncan, Acans, sympodium) and some are growing new polyps so is it possible that it was too much for my nem?

I will also try weekly water changes to see if that makes "Manny" happier.

Whew, I had a nem (condy I think) when I was a kid and none of this ever happened. He hosted 2 clowns and was happy. This was in the 70/80's with no special lighting so when I got back into it I didn't realize that there are so many factors to consider.

 

[Amoo]

What is the best way to get him to eat? He is on his own rock (to protect my coral) which can be moved if I need to which is about 13"l x 10"h (at the highest point) x 4" thick. Would it be best to move his rock into the open a bit more to feed him because right now he's wedged himself between the back part of rock and glass making it difficult to target feed.

I am going to try the Steve's reset and see if this helps. My acclimation has not at all harmed my corals (zoas, paly, duncan, Acans, sympodium) and some are growing new polyps so is it possible that it was too much for my nem?

I will also try weekly water changes to see if that makes "Manny" happier.

Whew, I had a nem (condy I think) when I was a kid and none of this ever happened. He hosted 2 clowns and was happy. This was in the 70/80's with no special lighting so when I got back into it I didn't realize that there are so many factors to consider.

The problem is if you move the rock in some way, you have the potential of upsetting him more. The best you can probably do is get a really long syringe or bulb baster and brodcast some food as close to him as possible.

I do think upping your WC schedule and possibly keeping a closer eye on top offs combined with trying to readjust lighting acclimation could have Manny looking good in about a month.

Also FWIW a NEM in deteriorating shape can certainly react much more negatively to change in light intensity then corals that are doing well. My nems will usually tell me if something is starting to get out of whack with my tanks long before anything else does.

 

[Rechelle Fleck]

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.

If there is a chance that the zoox left or he rejected them, how to I look into getting him back into good health? He moved again last night where I can target feed him more effectively at least.

 

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If there is a chance that the zoox left or he rejected them, how to I look into getting him back into good health? He moved again last night where I can target feed him more effectively at least.

keep your water parameters in check, start the lighting acclimation schedule and try to manually feed it. that’s all you can do. like i said before, these wild collected nems are not hardy in general. so prepare yourself for the worse. all of the questions you’ve been bombarded with by others here are useless. there’s only so much you can do and there’s no sure way of knowing what causes these issues. just being honest.

 

[Amoo]

all of the questions you’ve been bombarded with by others here are useless. there’s only so much you can do and there’s no sure way of knowing what causes these issues. just being honest.

...

That's funny, I could have sworn all the useless questioning led to the uncovering of multiple problems which could aid in a starving BTA....