New BTA owner

[zbrusko]

Hi!

I picked up a BTA 4 or 5 days ago. I believe it is doing fine (photo attached), but I have three questions.

1. It hasn’t moved at all since I put it in. It wedged under this rock and hasn’t budged literally from the first 5 minutes. Is this normal?
2. It apprears to be wedged in sideways. He’s pretty big, but his mouth is essentially near the sand. What you see is really only half.
3. It shrinks up very tiny every night. I was amazed how small he gets. This only happened once during the day when I noticed my emerald crab poking around near him on his rock.

My gut says all is well, but these creatures are so foreign to me, I want to make sure these are not signs of issues to come.

Thanks!

 

[Nano_Man]

Hi!

I picked up a BTA 4 or 5 days ago. I believe it is doing fine (photo attached), but I have three questions.

1. It hasn’t moved at all since I put it in. It wedged under this rock and hasn’t budged literally from the first 5 minutes. Is this normal?
2. It apprears to be wedged in sideways. He’s pretty big, but his mouth is essentially near the sand. What you see is really only half.
3. It shrinks up very tiny every night. I was amazed how small he gets. This only happened once during the day when I noticed my emerald crab poking around near him on his rock.

My gut says all is well, but these creatures are so foreign to me, I want to make sure these are not signs if issues to come.

Thanks!

If you don’t mind me asking how old is your tank

 

[Timfish]

Listen to your gut! Patience is a virtue and trying to fix a supposed problem often does more harm than good. Do your water changes and I wouldn't bother trying to feed it. Here's one of mine in a 90 gallon that is never fed. For refference the female clown is pushing 4" TL

 

[zbrusko]

If you don’t mind me asking how old is your tank

Younger than it should be, probably. 3 months almost to the day. My LFS said it would be ok, but a lot of folks here seem to suggest 6-12 months is better. That is playing into my concern. Tank is not as stable as it should be. Realized in the last few days that my Milwaukee was off by .002, when I was getting low alk & Ca. Also nitrates & phos bottomed out. So I’m slowly raising salinity via water changes (which isn’t helping the nitrate & phosphate situation, I know) & dosing nitrates and phosphates to try and bring those up. I am concerned this may affect the BTA, but he has been holding steady.

 

[zbrusko]

Listen to your gut! Patience is a virtue and trying to fix a supposed problem often does more harm than good. Do your water changes and I wouldn't bother trying to feed it. Here's one of mine in a 90 gallon that is never fed. For refference the female clown is pushing 4" TL

Wow. Didn’t realize they got that big!

 

[Cell]

Listen to your gut! Patience is a virtue and trying to fix a supposed problem often does more harm than good. Do your water changes and I wouldn't bother trying to feed it. Here's one of mine in a 90 gallon that is never fed. For refference the female clown is pushing 4" TL

Your clown is likely bringing the nem food. So while you never directly feed it yourself, it's getting fed.

 

[Nano_Man]

Younger than it should be, probably. 3 months almost to the day. My LFS said it would be ok, but a lot of folks here seem to suggest 6-12 months is better. That is playing into my concern. Tank is not as stable as it should be. Realized in the last few days that my Milwaukee was off by .002, when I was getting low alk & Ca. Also nitrates & phos bottomed out. So I’m slowly raising salinity via water changes (which isn’t helping the nitrate & phosphate situation, I know) & dosing nitrates and phosphates to try and bring those up. I am concerned this may affect the BTA, but he has been holding steady.

BTA are quite hardy they like a bit of nitrate and phosphate. Just let them do there own thing and it should be fine. Looks good at the moment good luck

 

[Northern Flicker]

Listen to your gut! Patience is a virtue and trying to fix a supposed problem often does more harm than good. Do your water changes and I wouldn't bother trying to feed it. Here's one of mine in a 90 gallon that is never fed. For refference the female clown is pushing 4" TL

It's just the most BTA thing ever that it decided to settle down in that spot like that.

 

[Timfish]

Your clown is likely bringing the nem food. So while you never directly feed it yourself, it's getting fed.

Well, it's obviously feeding well. The tank only gets pellets and the pellets are blown away from the BTA. Does it get some pellets? Probably but not many and the clowns are never observed bringing pellets back to any of the BTAs. Considering the number of anemones and the competition for pelllets the BTAs I'd say are getting most of their nitrogen and phosphorus and carbon as dissolved inorganic or dissolved organic forms vs particulates. So I think it's more accurate to say all the fish are feeding the anemones

Effects of anemonefish on giant sea anemones: Ammonium uptake, zooxanthella content and tissue regeneration

(2005) Porat, Chadwick-Furman. Marine and Freshwater Behaviour and Physiology. Zooxanthellae symbiotic with stony corals utilise ammonium excreted by resident fish populations. However, the contrib...

www.mendeley.com

(PDF) Phosphate excretion by anemonefish and uptake by giant sea anemones: Demand outstrips supply

PDF | High biodiversity on coral reefs results in part from tight nutrient cycling among symbiotic organisms, such as within the obligate associations... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

www.researchgate.net

Nutrient transfer in a marine mutualism: patterns of ammonia excretion by anemonefish and uptake by giant sea anemones - Marine Biology

Many symbioses involve multiple partners in complex, multi-level associations, yet little is known concerning patterns of nutrient transfer in multi-level marine mutualisms. We used the anemonefish symbiosis as a model system to create a balance sheet for nitrogen production and transfer within...

link.springer.com