RBTA is fading

[Jan]

Hi Anthony,

What would you suggest to help a formerly red RBTA that is now a washed-out brick color? I'm assuming that this color shift means that it is not doing well. It also changes positions quite frequently. A few weeks ago I noticed that it no longer accepted food (it's tentacles aren't sticky and the food floats away). And a little before that, it was wandering around the tank for a week or two, after having been in one place for 3-4 months since I got it. The only real change before the wandering started was my switching to the 12K DE Reeflux bulb after having an old Phoenix 14K bulb in. That's when everything started to change, but I'm skeptical that a bulb change could have caused all of this. (?)

Tank is 30 gallons, plumbed to a larger system. RBTA is ~24" underneath the light. It has a clarkii clown living in it.

Sg is 1.024
KH is 8 dhk
Ca is 400
Nitrates are not detectable
Phosphate is .05

 

[Herefishyfishy]

I think Anthony is busy with his new book, hasn't really been around since last summer.

Wandering anemones are typically light or fish related. What were you attempting to feed it? Any fish bothering it? Have you tried mysid shrimp or cocktail shrimp near it's mouth? Salinity always in this slightly lower range? Try removing the phosphates. Weren't you having problems with Alk recently? What other chemistry changes has there been in the tank recently?

 

[Jan]

Wandering anemones are typically light or fish related. What were you attempting to feed it? Any fish bothering it? Have you tried mysid shrimp or cocktail shrimp near it's mouth? Salinity always in this slightly lower range? Try removing the phosphates. Weren't you having problems with Alk recently? What other chemistry changes has there been in the tank recently?

Hi Mike,

I was attempting to feed it mysis shrimp most recently, before that it was meaty bits from Rod's frozen food. I put a 1/4" piece near its mouth a couple of weeks ago and it tried to swallow it but didn't make much progress and eventually the Clarkii clown stole it. As far as fish bothering it, this Clarki clown "loves" it a lot, lots of diving in and wiggling around. I recently saw a black legged crab in the tank (hitchhiker) that was 1-2" across. I didn't see any hair on its front legs, couldn't see its body, but the claw shape looked like pics I've seen of the Emerald crab family. I don't know if this crab might be bothering it but maybe it's possible?

Chemistry:

Salinity is usually in the 1.024 to 1.025 range. I started using Zeovit 2.5 weeks ago and since then my skimmate production has doubled or tripled; I think the increased RODI makeup water is responsible for a salinity drop to 1.023 last week, which I brought back up to 1.024. So no, it's not always this low. (The anemone's wandering and loss of appetite started before I began using Zeovit, BTW.)

Alk: I was having problems this summer with my Calc Rx and keeping my Alk stable. I was measuring the Alk with a good quality test each day, and needing to tweak the bubble count about every 2 days either up or down to compensate for Alk drift. The regulator was not very good (no needle wheel) and each correction seemed to over-shoot.

I replaced first the regulator and finally the feed pump with better quality stuff and since then I've been much more successful in keeping the Alk stable. That being said, the Calc Rx did go on the fritz a week or so ago--it was off for 24 hours only--but in that time the Alk dropped from it's normal point of 7.0 to 6.0. The feed pump was replaced with an Eheim and it went back online...after ~2 days of tweaking I measured the Alk at 8.0 dhk.

So as you can there have been some parameter changes in spite of my efforts to keep things as stable as possible. :|

 

[Holygral]

What lighting do you have, when a Anemone starts to bleach, lighting is usually the culprit, other parameters are also needed, also how long have you had the RBTA and what kind of lighting did it come from?

 

[Jan]

It's under 12K Reeflux DE + CF supplementation. 24" below. It came from 12K Reeflux lighting. I've had it since May. I've posted my other parameters earlier in this thread...

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Chem changes except for water changes or raising low too alk or low Ca seems to annoy them IMHO. Are they near anything that is creating Chem warfare like any LPS?

Ilham (Elmo) and Cesar (Katchupoy) each seem to have awesome success with RBTAs. PM both and get their opins on what seems to make these tick. Wish I was more help.

 

[Jan]

OK, thanks for the tip. I'll ask them to read this thread and see if they have any ideas.

Also in this cube I have some zooanthids, one frag of favia septa, two mushroom rocks, and a stand of Kenya trees.

 

[Katchupoy]

Jan, I am not by all means an expert with RBTA. I used to have 1 and now I lost count on 20 plus.

But here is my two cents. I can only assume that it is the bulb. I remember the same thing happened with Elmo. From a previous 10k XM to 15k XM, Everything shifted to like what your saying washed out brick color. A picture of will even be better.

So for some reason, the spectrum of both bulbs even they look the same is different. Maybe the other is 420nm and the other is 450nm. To which the RBTA reacted, i dont know because it never happened to me. If you want, you can bring your RBTA to me for nourishment and I will try to revive it. Then I will just replace it with a healthy one.

about the moving around. Lately I have the same experience. As you know, I just moved to a new location and all my creatures are in a tempo state. For some reason, they dont like flow on them. Here is the situation. I have all my rbta on the left side of the tank. And a single maxijet is on the right side of the tank. 5 RBTA at a time will try to crawl away from their island rock. Then the next experiment i did is to move the maxijet also on the left side of the tank directly on top of them facing the right side of the tank. Now they have flow but indirectly. We are talking about a single maxijet on a 40 breeder. Now they dont move....


Just for experimental sake. I moved the pump to the right side again facing the left side. There you go. 3 moved out. So I returned it back again to the other side. And ever since then nobody moved.

Sorry for a very long bla bla. Its not scientific experiment but I dont know, it worked.

Hope this helps.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Anecdotal or not, awesome info Cesar.

 

[Jan]

Thankyou, Cesar. That is pretty interesting. I was wondering about a spectrum change that the anemone might not have liked. I've never read anywhere if there is a specific spectrum that BTA's like in particular, but wouldn't that be an interesting study? Unfortunately I absolutely hated the way that the Pheonix 14K looked on my EVC electronic ballast. It was like a black light. But there's no denying that things started to go south a couple of days after making this change.

I also wondered about flow changes. I have one Koralia pump pointed at the opposite wall in this cube and before things started happening, I pushed down a bit farther in the tank because I was doing a water change and I didn't want to turn it off. I then forgot to move it back up for a week or two.

The strange thing is that when this RBTA was roaming around, it would do it the most after the halide turned off and it would often place itself directly in the path of this Koralia's flow. I mean, it was like it was riding in a convertible. I couldn't figure it out.

I think this bulb spectrum thing is worthy of more investigation....

Thanks for your insights, Cesar.

 

[Elmo18]

Hi Jan.

As Cesar stated, you need a nice white bulb. I switched to an XM15k bulb when it first came out, and within 2 months all my roses were bleached. I had about 30 rose anemones in quite a small tank.

I switched back the XM10k and well within 3 more months each one gained back its color.

I don't attribute the healing process due to only the bulb, however. IMO, this was about 60-70%. The rest was feeding. Anemones feed in a variety of ways. People who don't feed their anemone directly probably will say they don't feed their anemones. But they probably feed a lot to their tank and they just don't see food that the anemone captures or that it absorbs from the water column.

I feed mine directly. One of my favorite methods is to take smaller bay scallops (not the giant ones) and thaw them out fully. Rinse off all that slime and gunk (as much as you can). Then you will chop them. Get them to about 1/8" cube pieces, small enough so that the anemones can eat them without problems, as pieces much bigger they will eat and you will see them spit it out 15-30 minutes later. Feeding also helps them to split faster.....and I've seen this happen...

As for flow, my roses did not like anything direct. I had a couple closed loop outputs. Where the water came out, they extended their column and opened up just above the water outputs. In other words, their tentacles do not like constant water flow. This also prevents them from opening up all the way. You do need water flow, though, so they can clean themselves (slough themselves of slime). You will know what I'm talking about when you handle an anemone. Your hands will smell for a couple hours...especially if you don't wash with soap or warm water.

High quality 10k bulbs and three times feeding per week will bring your rose anemone back. If you do not like that 10k look, I will suggest either to supplement with actinics, or if you are on multiple bulbs, switch one for a whiter bulb, and start your rose there. Chances are it will move there eventually.

As Cesar mentioned, it is not really the strength of the bulb, but the spectrum. I have some Rose anemones about as healthy as they can be, but they are only under a 40W PC bulb (10k).

Best,
Ilham

 

[Jan]

Thankyou, Ilham!

You and Cesar have been a wealth of useful information. Much appreciated--

Jan

 

[class clown]

Here's wishing your RBTA a healthy recovery Jan.

 

[apollothesun]

sorri to but in, but i wanted to purchase the zeovits too. i read in their forums and that some people experienced bleaching with there corals. i read that in order to use the product correctly, you have to purchase other items to compliment the zeovits, and introduce the zeovits slowly. zeovits has a forum on there website. hope this helps

 

[Jan]

appollo,

that's a good thought, and I wondered the same thing. After doing a bit of research on it myself I am leaning towards thinking that my issues were due to:

1. light spectrum too blue
2. food not fresh enough
3. water chemistry changes, including from Zeovit but also some salinity and alk changes (very challenging to keep things from changing!)

 

[Anthony Calfo]

its not about light (rarely so) but rather nitrogen. SO many anemones slowly starve and bleach... literally taking years in some cases. Yet they hang on. And also take many months to recover even with concerted efforts.

BTAs need micro foods... coral frenzy and the like are very good. Mysids are the extreme large end of the scale. Thought BTAs will blindly sting and draw in larger pieces of food... they also regurgitate the oversized pieces late at night and still starve to death despite the keeper thinking they are feeding their anemones well.

Daily feeding of fine foods for 3-4 months alone will color up any anemone under even just adequate light.

no worries

 

[Jan]

Great! Very nice to hear from you.

I will follow your advice. Please come back and visit again soon.

 

[Anthony Calfo]

will do, my friend I just a bit busier than usual the last few months