Is my BTA done for? And if so, what do I do?

chopdrop · May 28, 2019

Hi gang, a few months ago I got a green BTA and it did amazingly at first, I think:

Unfortunately, it took up residence in the back of the tank under an outcropping and now it no longer seems to be doing amazingly. I think it expelled its zooxanthelae (I came home and there was brown stringy stuff hanging off the rockwork, which I sucked up with a baster and disposed of) and now it's just kinda... like this:

I've been trying to feed it mysis but it reacts sluggishly, seems to me. I'm afraid there's no salvaging this fella and as a result I want to get it out before it will apparently explode and kill everything in my apartment, including my wife and the cats.

So question 1: Is it a lost cause? If not, what do I do? (This was two questions, forgive me)

Question 2: If it is a lost cause, how do I get it off the rock and onto its greater reward without messing up anything in the tank?

Thank you!

Hemmdog · May 28, 2019

What have you been feeding it ? What are your lights ? What’s your water parameters. It looks alive but not happy.

GK3 · May 28, 2019

chopdrop said:
Hi gang, a few months ago I got a green BTA and it did amazingly at first, I think:

Unfortunately, it took up residence in the back of the tank under an outcropping and now it no longer seems to be doing amazingly. I think it expelled its zooxanthelae (I came home and there was brown stringy stuff hanging off the rockwork, which I sucked up with a baster and disposed of) and now it's just kinda... like this:

I've been trying to feed it mysis but it reacts sluggishly, seems to me. I'm afraid there's no salvaging this fella and as a result I want to get it out before it will apparently explode and kill everything in my apartment, including my wife and the cats.

So question 1: Is it a lost cause? If not, what do I do? (This was two questions, forgive me)

Question 2: If it is a lost cause, how do I get it off the rock and onto its greater reward without messing up anything in the tank?

Thank you!

Question 1:
How olds the tank?
What lights are you running?
How often are you target feeding it?

Question 2:
Can you break the rock?
If not, I’ve had success aiming a power head at its foot and waiting for it to let go. But it will be very unhappy.

Mariette · May 28, 2019

I don't know anything about this but i would try to get it out of there ASAP and I to qt.

GThompson · May 28, 2019

You’re feeding it mysis shrimp? Is that all ? If so it might be hungry. I get fresh eating size shrimp and cut chunks off of it to feed mine. Hope it hangs in there.

Kristophf · May 29, 2019

Definately not a goner, i have a green bta that was much worse and came close to death. I moved him to qt tank and hes slowly recovering. You need good stable water and light quality mainly. Feeding a littlw when possible

cracker · May 29, 2019

First toff , can you reach it ? it's not history yet. Some will say feed , others will suggest no feeding ,just leave it alone. Is your lighting enough? it will let go if it's not happy at this spot.
I personally say don't feed it, leave it alone & figure how to get the rock it's on out of the tank .If it gets worse . Can Ya get a good look at the mouth? Please keep us informed & good luck !

Mariette · May 29, 2019

I would t leave it alone. Left alone, it’s steadily going downhill. I’d take action. Get it out of DT and into qt ASAP

DSC reef · May 29, 2019

Mariette · May 29, 2019

DSC reef said:
I would leave the anemone alone, it can regain it's zooxanthellae. Removing and putting it in QT would cause more stress than good. It expelled its zooxanthellae, it doesn't have velvet.

This thread is a learning opportunity for me too so please excuse the budding in but OP and I could both learn from this question. I was under the impression that, if they die, they can poison the tank. It appears to be going downhill. What are we hoping will happen to turn it around?

DSC reef · May 29, 2019

GabeM · May 29, 2019

I had an issue with my own BTA recently - basically I think it was starving/ the clownfish were bothering it too much.

I was able to use gloved fingers to get the anemone (quite easily) off of the rock and I put it in an acclimation basket with a small rock. It's making a great recovery feeding reef roids once a day.

I take it out of the water via the rock it is attached to and I smell it once a day to make sure there is no necrosis - it seems to be making great progress.

My other BTA is unaffected.

chopdrop · May 29, 2019

Well, I came home after work and after doing some errands and eating dinner I finally was able to check some params and I think my main take away is my kit is messed up. It shows a kh of 10 and a ph of 8.0, which are great, but it says my ammonia is at something like a 2 and my nitrates are off the chart which is not possible. This tank is doing great other than the nem, the xenia is pulsing merrily away and the inverts are all hale and hearty. I'll try to get a sample in to the LFS this weekend and have them test it but I don't believe for a second those readings.
The tank is about 6 months old now, which I now know is kind of young for a nem but it's been highly successful and my maintenance has been pretty diligent.
I have an AI Prime running a sort of modified Saxby profile, one that has been weakened somewhat and I am also not running it on full strength. My filter basket has floss, carbon at the moment, and then finally a small refugium thing with chaeto and a million pods.
I had gone about two weeks removing any sort of chemical filtration and trying to go without a water change for some reason, but I thought my duncans were looking bad so I have done two water changes since and am running carbon. Duncan looks a lot better. All my softies look amazing too; gsp, zoas, leathers.
I had, in addition to the built in return pumps, two rotary powerheads on either side of the tank but I thought the flow was probably too much and got rid of one.
I have been feeding about once a day, a mix of mysis, reef roids, reef nutrition roe and arctipods, phyto from a bottle, and the red sea coral nutrition thing.
I will go to the grocery store tomorrow and buy some shrimp from them and try feeding it (and my rfas!) some of that. Fingers crossed. It was my favorite thing for the week or two that it was plainly visible and fully healthy.

chopdrop · Jun 3, 2019

As an update, I took a water sample to my lfs to have them run things. My phosphates were high (.2, iirc) and my nitrates were in the high range (.5, again iirc). I have performed a 20% water change (as I try to do weekly) and am now running GFO and some purigen in my media basket. I was a little surprised to find out about the phosphates because I have no real algae growth to speak of, save for some coralline and then my little chaeto basket compartment which grows well.

Hopefully this will be the key to getting back on track. I received some contradictory guidance in this thread re: feeding the nem but I have given it some fresh supermarket shrimp and as far as I can tell it ate it. I definitely don't want to overload the poor thing, nor do I want to continue contributing to excess nutrients in the tank so I'm a little mystified on best course of action here.

Does a nem dying in and of itself torch water quality or is just that a large dead organism will proceed to rot and create a toxic situation? I can't seem to find a definitive answer anywhere.

GabeM · Jun 3, 2019

chopdrop said:
As an update, I took a water sample to my lfs to have them run things. My phosphates were high (.2, iirc) and my nitrates were in the high range (.5, again iirc). I have performed a 20% water change (as I try to do weekly) and am now running GFO and some purigen in my media basket. I was a little surprised to find out about the phosphates because I have no real algae growth to speak of, save for some coralline and then my little chaeto basket compartment which grows well.

Hopefully this will be the key to getting back on track. I received some contradictory guidance in this thread re: feeding the nem but I have given it some fresh supermarket shrimp and as far as I can tell it ate it. I definitely don't want to overload the poor thing, nor do I want to continue contributing to excess nutrients in the tank so I'm a little mystified on best course of action here.

Does a nem dying in and of itself torch water quality or is just that a large dead organism will proceed to rot and create a toxic situation? I can't seem to find a definitive answer anywhere.

Thanks for the update! I think you've done a great job so far.

Anemones are not well documented as far as captive care goes and most of the advice on these forums are entirely anecdotal and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Here is some advice based on my research:

You should feed the anemone sparingly (2x a week). A healthy anemone does not need to be fed to stay alive, but since yours is bleached it likely does not have a lot of zooxanthellae, which it needs to convert light to energy. Feeding the anemone should help keep it alive and heal until the bleaching has ended.
Be careful with removing phosphates - the maximum phosphate levels tested in reefs is .13 (and this is an outlier) so you should likely make sure they are below .1 . Stripping the system of all available phosphates too quickly however can be detrimental to corals.
Nitrates of less than 10 are fine for a mixed reef system. 1-5 is my target.

Quick edit:

As far as death goes, I think that you should remove the anemone no matter what if it starts "melting". I think that it will release both poisons due to nemotacysts and a large bioload on the system.

Auto-pilot · Jun 3, 2019

chopdrop said:
As an update, I took a water sample to my lfs to have them run things. My phosphates were high (.2, iirc) and my nitrates were in the high range (.5, again iirc). I have performed a 20% water change (as I try to do weekly) and am now running GFO and some purigen in my media basket. I was a little surprised to find out about the phosphates because I have no real algae growth to speak of, save for some coralline and then my little chaeto basket compartment which grows well.

Hopefully this will be the key to getting back on track. I received some contradictory guidance in this thread re: feeding the nem but I have given it some fresh supermarket shrimp and as far as I can tell it ate it. I definitely don't want to overload the poor thing, nor do I want to continue contributing to excess nutrients in the tank so I'm a little mystified on best course of action here.

Does a nem dying in and of itself torch water quality or is just that a large dead organism will proceed to rot and create a toxic situation? I can't seem to find a definitive answer anywhere.

Sorry about the conflicting info, everyone is just trying to help! He isn't a goner, good luck and I hope he turns around!

KorD · Jun 3, 2019

chopdrop said:
As an update, I took a water sample to my lfs to have them run things. My phosphates were high (.2, iirc) and my nitrates were in the high range (.5, again iirc). I have performed a 20% water change (as I try to do weekly) and am now running GFO and some purigen in my media basket. I was a little surprised to find out about the phosphates because I have no real algae growth to speak of, save for some coralline and then my little chaeto basket compartment which grows well.

Hopefully this will be the key to getting back on track. I received some contradictory guidance in this thread re: feeding the nem but I have given it some fresh supermarket shrimp and as far as I can tell it ate it. I definitely don't want to overload the poor thing, nor do I want to continue contributing to excess nutrients in the tank so I'm a little mystified on best course of action here.

Does a nem dying in and of itself torch water quality or is just that a large dead organism will proceed to rot and create a toxic situation? I can't seem to find a definitive answer anywhere.

I will give you a quick run down from the years I have had anemones. All my tanks I have ever owned have been anemone dominant.

They are weird critters! Just that... They do weird things.
Your phosphates are ok, just try and bring them down some. My tank has .25 phosphates, nitrates well not harm the anemone e like some people say it does, my tank is around 10ppm nitrates.

If the mouth of the gbta is not gapping open so the stomach is showing, that is a good sign. The issue with green bubble tip anemones is that they are very prone to bleaching versus other anemones. Tale of light in my mild flow, but if I were you I would try to see if I can move that rock about Midway down your tank or closer to the bottom.
other than that I would leave the end of me alone for now until it starts to either have an open gaping mouth or begin to melt.

I feed my BTA's once a day because I'm trying to get them larger and to split. If I were you I would feed every three days.
Are the testicles sticky or slimy?

Feeding a BTA a 1/4x1/4 hunk of raw shrimp is good, some might not like it and would rather have clams or a chunk of octopus.

KorD · Jun 3, 2019

chopdrop said:
As an update, I took a water sample to my lfs to have them run things. My phosphates were high (.2, iirc) and my nitrates were in the high range (.5, again iirc). I have performed a 20% water change (as I try to do weekly) and am now running GFO and some purigen in my media basket. I was a little surprised to find out about the phosphates because I have no real algae growth to speak of, save for some coralline and then my little chaeto basket compartment which grows well.

Hopefully this will be the key to getting back on track. I received some contradictory guidance in this thread re: feeding the nem but I have given it some fresh supermarket shrimp and as far as I can tell it ate it. I definitely don't want to overload the poor thing, nor do I want to continue contributing to excess nutrients in the tank so I'm a little mystified on best course of action here.

Does a nem dying in and of itself torch water quality or is just that a large dead organism will proceed to rot and create a toxic situation? I can't seem to find a definitive answer anywhere.

Sorry.. forgot to answer you question.
When the BTA melts it pits off a toxic reaction which will cloud your water and harm.yoir other inhabitants.
It will normally start with an open gaping mouth, and then start to turn into a jelly like substance.

chopdrop · Jun 3, 2019

Thank you so much, everyone! I definitely wasn't trying to be snarky about the conflicting advice, I'm aware that so much of this stuff is anecdotal and there just isn't a big enough sample size in this hobby to create any hard and fast rules! That's both the exciting and frustrating thing about reefing as far as I can tell, especially since so many of these animals are, let's be honest, effectively space aliens.