Issues With My BTA

roadkeel · May 29, 2014

Can anyone tell me what might be going on with my nem?

What I know:

Salinity is between 1.25 - 1.26
Temp is steady at 79*
Parameters are all normal
Did a 20% water change last night

I know the last couple of weeks on it have been stressful. I got new LEDs for my tank and I had to remove all of the lights that came with my tank. (Biocube) After I installed my lights I wired it incorrectly and when I turned on the power I damaged the drivers, so i had to send my lights back. That left me with no lights so I purchased 6 LED strips from Lowe's and used those for light for 5 days.

I have had my lights back in for 7 days now. But my anemone still doesn't look good. It moved high on the rocks and has not moved in about 10 days. I am not sure if I should be running more blues than whites or vice versa or the same amount of both.

I fed it some dried mysis shrimp this morning and when I got home this afternoon it's mouth was open and it appeared to be trying to expel small bits of the shrimp. My clowns were helping it by pulling the pieces out of the anemone's mouth.

Below are some pictures, the first 3 are this evening and the bottom 2 are from this morning:

fishroomlady · May 29, 2014

can you see if the mouth is tight? It's footed so that's a good thing. If it was too much light, I would think it would move. It may just be acclimating to your lighting since it's been changed up in the last few days. I would leave it be and not try to feed it since it didn't want the food you tried. I'd give it some time and observe. I'm sorry I can't help on the LED settings because I'm not familiar with them

ryanlotz5 · May 29, 2014

LEDs from lowes won't have the par or light efficiency the bta needs ! Plan b buy another light till you get your back and then return it later that bta will go downhill fast without proper lighting

Sleep eat work reef repeat !!!

roadkeel · May 29, 2014

I only had the lights from Lowe's as a get-by solutions for 5 days. I got my new LEDs back last Thursday, so it has been under strong light (Steve's LEDs) for 7 days now.

Tahoe61 · May 29, 2014

That anemone looks like it's gone a long time without adequate nutrition. It may have lost a substantial amount of it's zooxanthellae and never recovered. You can tell by the stubby tentacles and the coloration.

If the anemone will take food then tiny pieces of raw fish or other meaty sea foods (you can get that at any grocery store) once a week. Dried mysis will not cut it at this point. The anemone has lost so much of it's zooxanthellae that it can no longer sustain it's self on lighting alone.

ryanlotz5 · May 29, 2014

Hmm I have Steve's LEDs luxeon 3w to are yours dimmed ? How many LEDs do you have on your fixture ? And on a side note did Steve's LEDs hook you up with new drivers or leave you stranded because I had a lot of problems with there drivers even using there diagrams and I'm very electrical savvy

Sleep eat work reef repeat !!!

roadkeel · May 29, 2014

My fixture has 28 LED's on it. I purchased a controller and now my drivers are set at 30% white on first driver, 87% blue on the second driver, 40% on the third driver which is a combo of blue/white, and 83% on the fourth driver which is blue.

Yes I got the latest drivers, but I am not very tech savvy and don't really understand them. I am just trying to run mine with the controller. I have them currently set to come on at 5:30 am gradually building for an hour and go off at 9:30 pm with them gradually dimming for an hour. I also have a moonlight kit which I keep on all the time and the lights are set to a very dim dark blue.

ryanlotz5 · May 29, 2014

Well I'm glad your having better luck with them ! I highly doubt lighting is your problem though changing lights can cause shock I'd recommend mysis feeding and maybe target feeding microvert or some coral food of that nature if you have it

Sleep eat reef repeat !!!