Man, that sucked

[lysaer]

So I woke up Monday morning and looked in my tank, and discovered my BTA had found a new home. On the side of my always on powerhead. Oh, wait. IN the side of my always on powerhead. A portion of the foot had been sucked into the cage, but not far enough to reach the propeller. I pulled the powerhead out, cut the cage around the foot, and got it free. Put it into a container with a small sponge filter running, because I had to get to work, and checked on it when I got home. It had unfurled from its fetallike position and taken up residence on the side of the container. Good sign! Or so I thought.

This morning, it was moving around the bottom of the container and I was concerned about the temperature and quality of the water (we're talking about a plastic box here, basically, it was all I had on short notice), but it was clearly active although the flesh inside of the tentacles was very gray. If I moved water towards it, it would start to close up. So I transferred it into my upcoming nano (10g) tank ...hopefully just for the day until I could get home and build a proper recuperation tank. I'm now thinking this might have been a bad idea. It's attached itself to a rock, and is still reactive, but one side of it is clearly damaged and I don't remember it looking like that.

Little bits of it have come free and I've fished them out of the tank so that it doesn't spike the ammonia, but i'm now wondering if there is any hope at all for it, and if so, what do I need to do?

 

[4FordFamily]

So I woke up Monday morning and looked in my tank, and discovered my BTA had found a new home. On the side of my always on powerhead. Oh, wait. IN the side of my always on powerhead. A portion of the foot had been sucked into the cage, but not far enough to reach the propeller. I pulled the powerhead out, cut the cage around the foot, and got it free. Put it into a container with a small sponge filter running, because I had to get to work, and checked on it when I got home. It had unfurled from its fetallike position and taken up residence on the side of the container. Good sign! Or so I thought.

This morning, it was moving around the bottom of the container and I was concerned about the temperature and quality of the water (we're talking about a plastic box here, basically, it was all I had on short notice), but it was clearly active although the flesh inside of the tentacles was very gray. If I moved water towards it, it would start to close up. So I transferred it into my upcoming nano (10g) tank ...hopefully just for the day until I could get home and build a proper recuperation tank. I'm now thinking this might have been a bad idea. It's attached itself to a rock, and is still reactive, but one side of it is clearly damaged and I don't remember it looking like that.

Little bits of it have come free and I've fished them out of the tank so that it doesn't spike the ammonia, but i'm now wondering if there is any hope at all for it, and if so, what do I need to do?

Yikes that does not look good. At best I give it 50/50... Probably more like 25:75 that it's done..

 

[Hawain_Rob]

I'd say put a fork in it....

 

[jayjigga]

You'd be surprised how much they can take. I wouldn't be surprised with a full recovery and/or split. Keep decent flow and keep it safe and I think you'll be fine. Get him into stable waters asap though.

 

[lysaer]

He's in a 10g tank with stable parameters and 26c water now. Is there any particular feeding or medication routine I should take now?

 

[jayjigga]

He's in a 10g tank with stable parameters and 26c water now. Is there any particular feeding or medication routine I should take now?

I've heard of people using cipro on BTAs, but I'm not sure if that would make much sense atm. Just keep him out of the PHs and he should be okay. Just make sure stuff like ammonia, nitrates/trites stay 0-low and give him adequate light. I wouldn't feed till he's closed up completely. Let him chill out for a few weeks.

 

[Amoo]

If it was me and my nem I would Cipro it as the working theory here is chance of infection setting in is probably pretty high. Link is in my Sig.

 

[ReefMadScientist]

I had a nem do the same thing but actually half of the nem got shredded. It looked miserable for the first couple of days. It grew back to normal.

 

[lysaer]

Got home from work today and found the nem just...disintegrating into the tank. No reaction to touch or water movement, foot completely deflated.

And now I return to siphoning out bits of nem before doing a massive water change.

 

[Reefrookie220]

See the white stuff? That's always bad news IME. Lol I had a nem I was super fond of that kept gaping it mouth and spitting out it's insides. I'd blow them back in gently with a turkey blaster and it actually worked. Other than that the white stuff always meant death.