bipolar rbta
 

A little history on this RBTA. When I got it from Live Aquaria, the water was 67* and the anenome was not in good shape. I drip acclimated for 2-3 hours and then put it into my tank. The nem did this thing for a couple of days where it looked like it was going to die. It was expelling its messentral (sp?) filaments and looking pretty crappy.

I fed it small silversides every other day for like 2 weeks and then it started refusing the food. It hasnt eaten in about 2 weeks and I try to feed it every day. Now, it shrivles up to about the size of its foot and then inflates to a normal size.

My params are good, lighting is strong, good flow, etc. I have one other coral in there right now (Acropora Humilis) which is thriving.

My tank has been up and running for almost 1.5 years now and have had other anenomes with great success. Any ideas as to what to do???

Mike

Maybe it's still acclimating. A brief drop to 67F shouldn't be a problem, that is well above the low temps. occasionally encountered in the wild. The strong lighting might be an issue, is it hiding in the shade?

When you were feeding it every other day..did it eat the food you were offering? You really should feed it once every three days, like no more than three times a week. Any more than that you could be overfeeding your anemone and cause water quality to go down. Did your bta loose its zooxanthellae? Could you post a picture of your bta? When you said your anemone looked like it was dying for a couple of days. It was just trying to get use to its new home. They deflate to change the water in their bodys to acclimate themselfs to the tank. When you see it spitting out brown strings of stuff...thats poop. The more you feed the anemone the more it does this. Is your bta still sticky as in does the food still stick to it?

What brand of silversides are you feeding your bta? I have noticed with my lta that I have now and btas I have had in the past..didn't like ocean nutrition silversides. They really liked sanfransico bay brand silversides though. Also, my anemones would quit eating silversides once they have been in the freezer a little over a month. If you have just bought the silversides and the anemone still won't eat it. Start spot feeding mysis shrimp every other day.

To get to know a lot about BTAs go to this web site

[url]www.karensroseanemones.com[/url]

Its white spaghetti like strand so its not poop. It was bleached when it arrived at my home. The color did improve a little when it was accepting food. It is not sticky at all right now and it seems to be getting worse. I am going to do a series of water changes over the next couple of days to see if that helps at all. Maybe I am missing some nutrients like Mg or something like that. I dont really know how much that would affect an anenome though.

It kind of hides, like half in the shade and half out. It hides completely at night though. Weird