What happened to my BTA?

[bananaphone]

Hi, I got this Green BTA about 2 weeks ago. It was doing just fine and looked happy up until 2-3 days ago, thats when it decided to move. up until that point after it settled into its spot around 24 hours or so after i put it in the tank, it didnt move until that moment a few days ago, and once it got settled again it looked pretty much back to normal. then yesterday/last night it curled up real bad and some of the foot wasnt gripped onto the rock anymore, then this morning i go and check on it and its basically just face first in the sand, and 30mins-1hour later it was fully detached just laying in the sand face first. I waited a couple hours to see if it would do anything and it didnt. At that point I decided it would probably be best to separate it, so I got a little red mixing bowl and put it in there with some water and then noticed the big hole in the mouth/center. ive seen things online about its guts coming out and it getting progressively worse but nothing like this. it seems like something straight up ate the mouth/center of it.

does anyone know what happened? my water is fine. i have a little bit of some nitrates but nothing alarming, and ammonia and nitrites are at 0.

 

[bananaphone]

i dont know how to edit, but here's a good pic of the mouth/center. it didn't hang open at all and expel its guts in my presence, if it did it must've been while i was sleeping. but i swear a couple days ago it was just fine, then this. im so confused.

 

[bananaphone]

ugh sorry! why can't i edit posts?

 

[cent36]

WOW! Thats grody and unfortunately I don't have a good answer to your anemone question, but the reason you can't edit posts is because you are not a MASC member nor do you have enough posts.

 

[TheRealChrisBrown]

I had the same experience with a rainbow about 2 years ago. I can't explain it either, one day it looked fine, the next it was on the sand in a ring. I let it hang on for 48 hours, which was about 47 too long. My thought was maybe it was trying to split so I took a razor and split it myself...that didn't work, just made a mess. Sorry, I don't have a miracle recovery story just a similar one so at least you know you are not alone.

 

[bananaphone]

Its alright, does make me feel a bit better that im not alone. I would understand if it showed signs of going bad, but to be fine one day and bad the next? such a bummer.

 

[jahmic]

it happens. Unfortunately that nem is beyond saving IMO. Once they gape like that through the foot it's a goner.

Do you have any cleaner shrimp in your tank? They can be little bastards when new nems are introduced. If there is any sign of stress to the nem or damaged tissue...they will pick at them all the way through the center of the foot JUST like that. I've had a couple rock nems suffer the same fate, and caught the cleaner shrimps in the act.

 

[Skrappy]

+1^ I have overfed a BTA and had a cleaner shrimp eat out the center of the foot cleaning it out, led to the nems death.

 

[SynDen]

Ouch, sorry to see that. Never had that happen before but my first thought before reading the post, was that something had to have eaten it. So shrimps would make sense

 

[bananaphone]

Ahh, yeah it really looks like something ate it, but I only have 1 pistol shrimp i got a few days ago and he's super tiny and hides under his rock with his goby all day. I do have hermit crabs, do you think they could've done it? they would climb on it to get scraps of mysis but i never noticed any near the mouth.

i dont have any fish in there besides 2 black clowns and the watchman goby i got a few days ago, so I really don't think it was them.

i think i may hold off for another week or two+ before i get another BTA. I need to figure out what did this since it didn't die due to my water which i see is the biggest problems with anemones.

 

[jahmic]

If the crabs are the culprit, they probably didn't go after the nem til it ended up face down in the sand. It sounds like it was just stressed and let go, unfortunately. Your crabs probably ate away at the foot after the fact, but I doubt they caused the decline.

Water changes and carbon may help. You mentioned ammonia/nitrite/nitrate are fine...but what about your other parameters? You'll need to get your Alk, Ca, and Mag checked before determining that your water levels were fine. Also...how old is your tank and how established is your live rock?

 

[bananaphone]

Im going to buy some carbon from either bulkreefsupply or check out one of my lfs tomorrow to see how much they charge. I don't have a kit to test alk, ca and mag, i'll order that this week unless its reasonably priced in store. Tank is about 10-12 months old but started out brackish, has been salt for 8-10 of those months (was only brackish for 2 months). the rock came from an established 300g tank that was running for a few years, that was being torn down due to a move/baby on the way and i've had it for months now with no issues.

 

[jahmic]

In that case I'd say just bring a sample of water to your lfs and ask them to test it for you. That'll give you a good idea on where you are and won't cost anything but the gas to get there. I'd recommend buying test kits either way so you can keep up with your parameters, and will warn away from API kits since the kH kit tends to be inaccurate and difficult to read.

Are you measuring salinity with a refractometer? If so...make sure it's calibrated properly with standard solution (and not RO water). If you are using a hydrometer to measure salinity...they work OK but I'd still recommend upgrading to a refractometer so you can keep your parameters consistent.

 

[bananaphone]

Noted, I will work on getting all those things done in the next week. what brand of test kit would you recommend?

 

[jahmic]

Salifert and Red Sea both tend to be popular/trusted. Red Sea makes a nice kit that saves you some coin...salifert you have to buy tests individually.

 

[CRW Reef]

Salifert and Red Sea both tend to be popular/trusted. Red Sea makes a nice kit that saves you some coin...salifert you have to buy tests individually.

+1 and you can also buy refill kits for the Red Sea Pro test kits http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/aquarium-monitors-controllers/testing/red-sea.html

 

[atang]

Interesting thread on the shrimps getting too rambunctious on the anemone. I feed my rbta plenty and have many a time seen my cleaner shrimp eating the excrete from the nem. Although I do have a pair of clowns that guard the nem. I assume they're what's keeping the shrimp from getting too greedy and heading into the nem.

I'll keep this in mind next time I have the nem without clowns + cleaner shrimp combo.

 

[Skrappy]

could also maybe be that the clowns loved it to death. rubbing too aggressively against it could rip the foot if there is something rough underneath it that it is attached too.

 

[bananaphone]

could the clowns really have rubbed it to death? they were both going pretty hard against it and it was on the live rock which isnt the smoothest surface. they were rubbing all along side of it not just the tentacles when it was moving as well.

 

[SynDen]

not likely, possible, but not likely. A large maroon clown might do that if the nem was to small to handle her affections. What kind of clowns you have, size, and do they host the nems?