When should I end it?

[lpsouth1978@msn.com]

Alright, so I bought this RBTA a while back. It has been through A LOT in the time I have had it, and was doing ok. However when I got home from work tonight it looked the worst it ever has. It almost looks like it is ready to melt. It is now a dark green color instead of red, it has completely deflated and is not attached to anything. Here is a picture from a couple of weeks ago and one taken tonight.

 

[303travism]

Is it losing pieces? If so I think I would toss it.

 

[lpsouth1978@msn.com]

No, it doesn't seem to be losing pieces yet. I may give it another day or two and see what happens. I don't have high expectations though.

 

[303travism]

Yea wait till it starts to fall apart it's kinda weird it's not footed to something though

 

[kmcmurtry]

I bought a sort of sad little GBTA and I knew when it was time to turn on the disposal as I came home to pieces of its mouth and body just drifting away like shredded strands of goo. With all the horror stories of nems nuking tanks when they croak, I wanted to get it out of there quick.

However, there have also been times where I nearly gave up on my red one it looked so pathetic, shriveled and dark purple - next day it was normal and pink again. Sometimes I have intervened if one was just floating loose, tucking it up into the rockwork in a safe place with some exposure to the light but not too much - once I placed mine in a sour cream container on the bottom where he was sort of out of the powerhead flow to give him some rest, seemed to help.

Good luck with your nem

 

[castlerock]

Take it out of the water a little and smell it.
You will know right away if you need to toss it.

 

[lpsouth1978@msn.com]

This is the weird part. It seems to do better at night. Every morning when I wake up it's color is good and it has little bubble tips, but when I get home from work it looks like the picture above. I don't know what else to do for it. This is what it looked like this morning.

 

[Haddonisreef]

Did you acclatmate to the LEDs? That's what I'm thinking! Cut the cycle in half and put egg crate over tank!

 

[lpsouth1978@msn.com]

Did you acclatmate to the LEDs? That's what I'm thinking! Cut the cycle in half and put egg crate over tank!

Thanks for the suggestion. I did as you said and cut the photoperiod in half. I also turned the LED's down to 10% and put eggcrate on top of the tank. The RBTA seems to be doing better already. It is far from 100%, but is has been inflated for the last two days. It has re-attached to the rockwork and seems pretty happy.

I figure that I will keep the eggcrate over it for a few more days and let is run with the lights at 10% for several days after that. Then I will increase the brightness by 10% every 4 or 5 days until I get back to full power. Then I will slowly increase the photoperiod until it is back up to 8 hours.

 

[Haddonisreef]

Awesome glade things are turning around! If you want I'll give you a deal on another rbta! Lmk if interested!

 

[lpsouth1978@msn.com]

Awesome glade things are turning around! If you want I'll give you a deal on another rbta! Lmk if interested!

If I can ever figure out what is going on with this one I may take you up on that. However, my earlier post may have been a little premature. Earlier today one of my green chromis disappeared. Then it re-appeared exiting the mouth of the BTA. After it spit the fish out it deflated completely and looks worse than ever. I guess we will see in a couple more days if it improves again.

 

[lpsouth1978@msn.com]

Awesome glade things are turning around! If you want I'll give you a deal on another rbta! Lmk if interested!

If I can ever figure out what is going on with this one I may take you up on that. However, my earlier post may have been a little premature. Earlier today one of my green chromis disappeared. Then it re-appeared exiting the mouth of the BTA. After it spit the fish out it deflated completely and looks worse than ever. I guess we will see in a couple more days if it improves again.

 

[cdrewferd]

How is your BTA doing?

 

[lpsouth1978@msn.com]

Not good. It has never recovered from this last deflation. It has not attached to the rock since it last came off (about 4 days ago) and does not really show any signs of life at this point. At least before it would react to stimuli in the tank, but now it is just laying there deflated and sad.

 

[cdrewferd]

That sucks. Any way you could move corals between your tanks and put him in another one?

 

[lpsouth1978@msn.com]

Unfortunately it is too late for the BTA. It looks like it is officially dead. It looks like it started melting while I was at work today and only half of it was left when I got home. My little white leg hermits are really enjoying it though. I am guessing that since it is so small and the total water volume is SO big, the nem did not pollute the tank enough to cause problems. Regardless I have removed what was left of it and plan to do a water change tonight.

 

[cdrewferd]

That stinks, sorry to hear. Hope your able to get another one and have better luck.


Drew

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk