What does it mean when a BTA deflates itself.

[Andrew Schubert]

So I've hade my BTA for about 2 weeks and he's been doing great. I've been feeding him small pieces of silversides every other day. With that in mind from time to time, his 'bubbles' go away and he looks limp (just like a deflated balloon looks). He always revives back to his beautiful self within minutes of it occurring though. It seems to happen when something startles him.

My thought is maybe his 'venom' is kepted in the bubbles and he's releasing it at that moment to sting the intruder that startled him? Maybe someone with more experience with BTA can shed some light on this 'odd' behavior.

*Example - I game him about a 1/5 of a silver-side around 6 PM today. Then tonight around 10 I was feeding my corals some reef chili and noticed his disc was huge at the moment. So I thought he must still be 'hungry'. So I sprayed some chili on him as well, and his tentacles deflated right away. His disc still remained huge however. Within 60 seconds (too soon to grab my phone to take a pic of his deflated state), he was back looking like normal.

So my thought is, this is a normal behavior where the anemone is saying, 'i'm not hungry, leave me alone'. Maybe a defense mechanism? But figured someone who has had one longer than 2 weeks can weigh in on the behavior .

Here is a pic of him full and healthy minutes after being deflated like a bunch of balloons.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Sounds like his tentacles are bringing the food to his mouth. Normal behavior. Mine deflates at night, when eating, and will even twist up for no reason at all. This was mine this morning (this is one anemone)

Amemones are strange.

Be careful feeding silversides. A BTA does not need big pieces of meaty food and may just cough them back up. It is not really necessary to feed a BTA at all (okay, I do squirt some mysis at mine occasionally). They will pick at what comes near them. The light is what they really need.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Check this out...

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/feeding-your-nem-stop-and-read-this-first.321885/

 

[davocean]

I would definitely stop feeding silversides

 

[Andrew Schubert]

Interesting... Because in my prob 6 hours of research I've read nothing but feeding small pieces of silversides to BTA. Did read to make sure they are small enough to injest it. That's why I only feed him a small bit. Prob actually less than 1/5 of a silversides. He got just half of just the head tonight. So very small portions.

 

[amazongb]

I feed both my nems about once a week directly with small pinches of mysis or rods.. the rest of the time I broadcast feed the fish and they catch what they can.. that said, mine would do that deflate routine when they were young and small, but haven’t seen it in months..