Green Bubble Tip; Losing Battle?

[orreefkeeper]

I have a green BTA that I have had for about 2 months. For the first month, it was "good", moved a bit but had good extension and color. Over the last 3-4 weeks it's been going downhill. For a while, I thought it was not happy with my LTA that was too close., but then it hid away from light and flow and got progressivly worse. See the below image, I've isolated it out for now out of fear of it going nuclear on my tank.

Is there hope of recovery or is it a lost cause at this point? Thanks!

Parameters as of 7/15, pre 20% water change.

Alkalinity 108ppm
Ammonia 0.00ppm
Calcium 406ppm
Magnesium 1231ppm
Nitrate 23ppm
Nitrite 0.10ppm
pH 7.8
Phosphate 0.20ppm

Temperature is between 77-78* F

 

[P-Dub]

Looks to be a gonner. How old is the tank? What is your lighting? How large is the tank? what other inhabitants are in your tank?

 

[Jekyl]

If you have cipro on hand or can get it quickly it may save it. How old is your tank? What lighting?

 

[Jekyl]

Let's tag some gurus and try to save it.
@Eagle_Steve @OrionN @F i s h y

 

[Goaway]

If you don't have cipro on hand. Sadly this guy is toast. That's what the green Anemones look like in my lfs.

 

[orreefkeeper]

45gal display, 55gal total volume.

over a year old. 2x clowns, 1x longnose hawk, 1x diamond goby, 1x ywg, 1x spotted bristle tooth tang (currently being caught to rehome), 1x cleaner shrimp, handful hermits and snails.

1x lta, 5x soft corals, 2x plate corals.
Red Sea ReefLed90, ReefWave 25.

I can pop down to my LFS and see if they have any cipro on hand.

 

[Goaway]

I don't know the rules on tank treatment. But qt tank I believe is 250mg tablet for 10g? Hopefully someone has better directions than I can provide.

 

[alxrosco]

I read few months ago the following dose. Each tablet contains 500mg of Ciprofloxaxine, which you dissolve in 50ml of RO. 1ml of the solution contains 10mg of Cipro, which treats about 21 gallons of water. You will apply it every 2 days, for a total of 3 doses. You can get the pills through a Vet.

 

[F i s h y]

Non prescription cipro is available from some pet stores and also at chewy.com.

I dose at a rate of 500mg per 10 actual gallons of water for 7 days.
Do this at lights out each night. Remove any carbon.
Easier to do in a qt tank.

That nem looks rough but if you can get cipro I've seen worse come back.

2 months ago I had to treat this entire tank because a nem I got from a hobbyist brought in a bacterial infection.

 

[Dolphins18]

It is not overly uncommon for "chemical warfare" to happen between anemones of different species. I have seen it several times, and while I can not explain, I can certainly attribute it to this.
I do imagine your LTA killed the BTA from a distance - while cipro may fix the BTA (I don't know much or never have had to treat a BTA ever)
Anemones are unique in a sense that they have this warfare from across the tank at times, it seems carbon may help, but can not prevent the inevitable.
If the anemone is cured with this "cipro" I would recommend you do not return it to a tank with the LTA.
This is an odd occurence I have seen between BTA's and other species, even species within the BTA family.
There are some anemone species that in my 16 year experience (with nems) will do fine with BTA's - those are only rock flowers and mini maxi carpets at this time (I am nearly 100% positive these species can mix with no problems).
Mixing anemones of other species does work for some, but its a bit like mixing tangs ime, hit or miss.
LTA's often do fine with other anemones, BTA's seem to be the issue, I do not yet understand what causes this, but have found that black widows BTA's have a particularly strong affect on nems kept within the same tank.
From what I have witnessed on several occasions, these anemones will fight to the death, in a manner that we can not see - whatever warfare is going on doesn't seem to affect corals or fish. It is not uncommon for the BTA to win, and the LTA's to wither instead.
I'd almost say with 100% certainty that this is your issue, and as others posted above it could be biological warfare that ultimately causes a bacterial infection, I do not know. But I do know that very few BTA's carry bacterial infections when brought into a tank.

 

[orreefkeeper]

Nope they don’t have any cirpo

It is not overly uncommon for "chemical warfare" to happen between anemones of different species. I have seen it several times, and while I can not explain, I can certainly attribute it to this.
I do imagine your LTA killed the BTA from a distance - while cipro may fix the BTA (I don't know much or never have had to treat a BTA ever)
Anemones are unique in a sense that they have this warfare from across the tank at times, it seems carbon may help, but can not prevent the inevitable.
If the anemone is cured with this "cipro" I would recommend you do not return it to a tank with the LTA.
This is an odd occurence I have seen between BTA's and other species, even species within the BTA family.
There are some anemone species that in my 16 year experience (with nems) will do fine with BTA's - those are only rock flowers and mini maxi carpets at this time (I am nearly 100% positive these species can mix with no problems).
Mixing anemones of other species does work for some, but its a bit like mixing tangs ime, hit or miss.
LTA's often do fine with other anemones, BTA's seem to be the issue, I do not yet understand what causes this, but have found that black widows BTA's have a particularly strong affect on nems kept within the same tank.
From what I have witnessed on several occasions, these anemones will fight to the death, in a manner that we can not see - whatever warfare is going on doesn't seem to affect corals or fish. It is not uncommon for the BTA to win, and the LTA's to wither instead.
I'd almost say with 100% certainty that this is your issue, and as others posted above it could be biological warfare that ultimately causes a bacterial infection, I do not know. But I do know that very few BTA's carry bacterial infections when brought into a tank.

thanks for the information! I had a feeling it was chemical warfare. The LTA is very big (12” at least) while the BTA was maybe 3”.

I couldn’t locate cipro but did remove it from my display to a very small 3gal.

 

[Dolphins18]

Nope they don’t have any cirpo

thanks for the information! I had a feeling it was chemical warfare. The LTA is very big (12” at least) while the BTA was maybe 3”.

I couldn’t locate cipro but did remove it from my display to a very small 3gal.

I think that is a good move, typically when I have seen this happen, anemones do not recover, but at the same time I do not relocate them to other tanks as I worry if this can somehow spread. I am doing a bit of a test at the moment after several years between different BTA species that have been known to argue - I see early signs, and this "chemical warfare" ultimately caused the winning species to breed sexually in my aquariums many years ago.
Why this happens is what I hope to learn.

 

[tjohnson3]

Non prescription cipro is available from some pet stores and also at chewy.com.

I dose at a rate of 500mg per 10 actual gallons of water for 7 days.
Do this at lights out each night. Remove any carbon.
Easier to do in a qt tank.

That nem looks rough but if you can get cipro I've seen worse come back.

2 months ago I had to treat this entire tank because a nem I got from a hobbyist brought in a bacterial infection.

Jesus! Are those baseball sized bubble algae in the back of the tank?! Lol

 

[F i s h y]

Jesus! Are those baseball sized bubble algae in the back of the tank?! Lol

Yes almost. I keep them as part of my macro algae collection. Beautiful specimens.

 

[P-Dub]

I, for one, am not convinced regarding "chemical warfare" amongst nems or any anthozoas for that matter. I have heard a lot of anecdotal occurrences but the science isn't there, at least not that I can find. Can you @Dolphins18 point me to any hard evidence to support "chemical warfare"?

 

[Dolphins18]

I, for one, am not convinced regarding "chemical warfare" amongst nems or any anthozoas for that matter. I have heard a lot of anecdotal occurrences but the science isn't there, at least not that I can find. Can you @Dolphins18 point me to any hard evidence to support "chemical warfare"?

There is not a whole lot of hard evidence (if any, directly linked to warfare among subspecies) beyond anecdotal at this time - though this is a good read and provides a look into what could be causing some of this (and how this is possible without direct contact). Why it happens between the same species (always from different mothers, ime) is beyond me.

Sea Anemone Toxins: A Structural Overview - PMC

Sea anemones produce venoms of exceptional molecular diversity, with at least 17 different molecular scaffolds reported to date. These venom components have traditionally been classified according to pharmacological activity and amino acid sequence. ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[P-Dub]

There is not a whole lot of hard evidence (if any, directly linked to warfare among subspecies) beyond anecdotal at this time - though this is a good read and provides a look into what could be causing some of this (and how this is possible without direct contact). Why it happens between the same species (always from different mothers, ime) is beyond me.

Sea Anemone Toxins: A Structural Overview - PMC

Sea anemones produce venoms of exceptional molecular diversity, with at least 17 different molecular scaffolds reported to date. These venom components have traditionally been classified according to pharmacological activity and amino acid sequence. ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Thanks for sharing that. As with other papers, I have read nothing definitive...