RBTA Dying?!?!?! HELP!!!

[Courtney Miller]

Our rbta is so stressed and looks terrible! Ive attached two images of how she looks right now. What should we do?? We have a 40 gallon bow front tank with full spectrum LED lights, Temp: 76, P.h:8.1, Ammonia:0, Nitrite:0.25, Nitrates:10, Salinity:1.026

 

[Saltine]

Return him to a store or a friend, you nave nitrites which means your tank isn't even fully cycled yet. That anemone is doomed in your tank.

 

[Tahoe61]

Does not look good. When they begin to really expel or show mesenterial filaments that is a bad sign. Not much you can do unless you move it to a QT and treat with Cipro. If the anemone looks the same or worse within the next 24 I would remove it. BTA can take a beating up to a point but once decay and bacterial infections set in there really not much to be done. I would give it another day though, it's not going to nuke the tank unless it's a small nano.

 

[Courtney Miller]

The only thing that troubles me is that our GBTA is doing just fine and has been for 2 weeks now.

 

[ebushrow]

If you have any nitrites in your tank, it has not cycled and you are torturing any and all inhabitants in the tank. You need to remove all the live stock and either return it to the store or give it away. You are just slowly killing all the animals. Then read about setting up new tanks before you add anything. The is a good sticky here to do that.

 

[sil40sx]

Temp is on the cold side,. Anything other than zero on nitrite is bad.

How old is the tank? If it looks like that for more than two days, more likely it's not going to make it unless moved to an established tank.

 

[Courtney Miller]

The tank is about 4-5 months old. We had a spike in all of our levels but we can't figure out why but all thats left are the nitrates. and its been less than 24 hours

 

[sil40sx]

If you used dry rocks and dry sand to start your tank, that's too early to have an anemone.

 

[Courtney Miller]

We used reef rock and wet sand

 

[sil40sx]

We used reef rock and wet sand

Oh I see. There's a long discussion somewhere here about when is a tank can be considered as established (i.e., ready for sps corals, anemone, etc.). That's a touchy subject. I'll leave that to the experienced peeps in here to chime in.

 

[Courtney Miller]

Good news everyone! She is feeling 110% better today! Mouth is closed, gained her color back and she's big again! thank you all for your help and suggestions. I really appreciate it

 

[Chrisfish]

Good news everyone! She is feeling 110% better today! Mouth is closed, gained her color back and she's big again! thank you all for your help and suggestions. I really appreciate it

Congratulations!! I hope your water parameters have stabilized as well,to what they should be.

 

[Tahoe61]

Looks excellent. It may revert back to looking bad on and off during acclimation. It sure is a beautiful anemone.

 

[Courtney Miller]

Looks excellent. It may revert back to looking bad on and off during acclimation. It sure is a beautiful anemone.

Thank you

 

[Courtney Miller]

Quick question though, do you guys think I could give her some food or will that stress her out more?

 

[Tahoe61]

Absolutely no feedings. Let the anemone acclimate for a week or more. Under modern lighting fixtures BTA do not need to be feed often. Just leave it be and be glad the anemone turned around for you.

 

[sil40sx]

Nice! Good to hear/see it's doing great!

 

[Nano101]

my RBTA died and destroyed my tank. Tried for a year to bounce back. tore down and started over