Severely Abused BTA Anemone

[Zakary2003]

I have a rbta, just witnessed it eating its own tenticle. Granted the tank was just fed and it caught some food, overzealous?

From what I understand, that is normal behavior and it is how they get the food off of their tentacles. I'm no expert, though.

 

[BOYERZ]

I have read that as well, I've never seen it happen in my own tank. Thought it was interesting. Hope your nem pulls through!

 

[Rick's Reviews]

Just a quick update: the nem has doubled in size, but it still doesn't like light and did not take kindly to the pvc connectors. It is currently eating a whole mysis shrimp every other day because it cannot photosynthesize. It is currently in a deli cup with a mesh lid in the overflow box of my waterbox cube 20. This allows me to easy feed it and keep it out of direct light while also protecting it from powerheads.

It still has no tentacles and no color. Does anyone have any suggestions to get it to regrow tentacles? I read a thread on here about giving a bleached nem a tentacle from a healthy nem to give it new zooxanthellae, but I don't think that will work until it has tentacles to photosynthesize with.

Just out of interest, is anemone still in a jar ?

 

[Rick's Reviews]

From what I understand, that is normal behavior and it is how they get the food off of their tentacles. I'm no expert, though.

 

[Zakary2003]

Just out of interest, is anemone still in a jar ?

No. A hermit crab freed it a few days after posting that picture. It took up residence in the rock work and was doing alright until I moved the tank to college.

 

[Zakary2003]

The little nem is officially gone. He passed away last night, which started a clean up crew feeding frenzy. This morning was the first time ammonia registered on my test kit since the tank cycled so I guess its death caused quite the spike, but the other tank inhabitants seem alright and I did a large water change and dosed some quick start. Not the ending I was hoping for, but there's only so much I could do.