Suicidal RBTA?

broke1 · #1 12/16/2007, 01:46 PM

I have had issues with this one since I purchased it. It was beautiful when purchased. The tank it went into was put up to just house it and two GSMs. It seemed to crawl under the rock and was content and pooked pretty good for what I could see of it. We decided to reaquascape the tank so I dug him out and flipped the rock he was attached to. Unfortunately he is not looking to good, pretty bad from what I can see.

After the tank maintenance is done, I will test for everything and post up the parameters.

Do these things normally crawl under rocks and hang upside down until they die?

I really don't know what to do anymore, I doubled the lighting on the tank hoping for an improvement, and thought he was hanging out under the rock to slowly acclimate himself to the lights. I don't know if parameters which have always been in check are the cause, lighting, flow or a combination of three.

Here is the poor condidtion right now.

Here is what he looked like before his downhill run.

hybridgenius · #2 12/16/2007, 02:38 PM

Wow... looks pretty bleached. Somethings probably wrong with the water.

J.R.L. · #3 12/16/2007, 03:19 PM

when i first got my GBTA it did the same thing...every morning when i got up it was somehwere else and usually under the rock away from the light but each time i flipped it so it would get light an eventually it stayed put and hes been there since

broke1 · #4 12/16/2007, 03:46 PM

Well, he is up right now and looking better, or at least I want him to look better. I did a 20% water change and just letting everything settle. I am going to try another 20% when we finally get a chance to redo the rock this evening. I think it's a water quality issue as well, but can not for the life of me figure out why this thing likes to live in the dark.

Hopefully this guy makes a recovery, the gaping mouth has since closed, but the little bit of food I offered him just floated away. I didn't think he would eat, but I also didn't think it would hurt to try.

Here is an up to date picture of what he looks like after about an hour in the light and after the water change. Also a good shot of his gaurd fish keeping an eye on me, she is SO mean.

garygb · #5 12/17/2007, 04:22 PM

That anemone would benefit from you keeping the maroon away from it for the time being. Once it is healthy and larger, you can reintroduce the maroon. For now it needs perfect water conditions and appropriate lighting. Once it starts to perk up a little, you can try feeding small pieces of food.

tydtran · #6 12/17/2007, 06:43 PM

A few weeks ago my anemone looked worse than yours and I was trying to figure out what was happening to it. Taking the suggestion that the clown fish itself might be the cause of the problem, I isolated the anemone. It is starting to recover, regaining its color, and inflating and eating again. I agree with the garygb that your fish may really be the problem and that your anemone was doing what it could to get away from them. Give it a chance to recover and grow and one day it will be ready for your clown fish.

broke1 · #7 12/18/2007, 08:35 PM

I wish I could get them out of the tank, but they would have to go in my big tank with a set of much larger Percs. With the aggression of these two and the Percs having the size advantage on them I would guess it would turn into a pretty ugly battle.

He looks to be perking up quite a bit. The coloring is terrible, but it has started to inflate quite a bit more.

chem-e · #8 12/18/2007, 08:41 PM

I've found RBTAs to be pretty resilient. I've put mine through a lot of stress thru tank moves and couple of temp tanks. Sometimes it'd be without lights for weeks at a time, but it's still holding on. It's only a fraction of it's original size, but now it's in a stable tank and I'm hoping that it regains it's original color.

Also, I don't know about your RBTA, but mine likes to have it's base underneath rock, so that's something to keep in mind if it begins moving around.

garygb · #9 12/19/2007, 01:24 AM

The anemone is looking better in those last pics, but the maroon is definitely too large for the anemone. A general rule of thumb is to make sure the anemone is three times wider in diameter than the clownfish is long. Some people put a plastic "strawberry crate box" or something similar that will allow water flow and light, but too small to allow a clown through. Or, perhaps you could someway isolate the clown, if you don't have another tank you could put it. I believe your RBTA would probably rebound (assuming water conditions are up to par) in a couple of months and be plenty large enough to accept your maroon again.

tgfrench · #10 12/19/2007, 06:44 AM

I don't know that it was anything that you did to the bta. In the first pic, which I assume was around the time of purchase, it looks pretty stressed and bleached. What your experiencing my just be a continuation of the downhill slide it was already on when you purchased it.
That being said, do everything to keep the clown out of it and let it heal. If you can't remove the clown, get the bta out of there.

wicked_NaCl_h2o · #11 12/19/2007, 12:05 PM

Get the anemone away from that clown. The anemone may look like its perked up a bit but its still in a lot of trouble. What is your salinity? Its mouth is open and tentacles are short that is not a good sign. Try to get a in tank refugium. They don't cost much or you could make one yourself and connect a pump to it so the anemone can get water circulation. An in tank refugium is great for an anemone in that condition. Do this quickly.. it looks like the anemone doesn't have much time. I wouldn't put a strawberry basket over it. It really doesn't do any good because if you take it off the bta to feed it, the clown will rush right in and do more damage. I haven't seen a green plastic strawberry basket in years, I don't know why people still tell people to use it. If you can find one, people only use it to keep cleaner shrimp from stealing the anemone food. Have the anemone ate any food yet? I hope you keep your salinity at 34 or 35 ppt.

broke1 · #12 12/19/2007, 06:53 PM

The only alternative I would have is to house one or the other in a frag tank. The only downfall to the whole idea is that it has quite a bit of flow. Can the RBTA handle a high flow tank?

55semireef · #13 12/19/2007, 07:01 PM

A stressed out RBTA in a high flow tank will never recover.

ssagent · #14 12/21/2007, 01:13 AM

Yeah I would check your water. As mine did bleach but came back. It turned out that I have really high phosphate.

ssagent · #15 12/21/2007, 01:14 AM

You can try the phosphate removal as it's very effective.

broke1 · #16 12/23/2007, 12:17 PM

The anemone has been moved to the frag tank. All the SPS were moved to a different tank so I could cut down the flow in the tank to next to nothing. It has gone from PC lights to T5s.

I run GFO contantly in my main system which the frag tank is tied into. This is a much more established system, Am, No3, No2 and Pho are all untedectable with my test kits.

I set up some rocks in there for him to attach to but he has not as of right now.

broke1 · #17 12/28/2007, 12:55 AM

He has finally attached to the rocks, enough that I can turn one powerhead back on and he stayed put.

He is under around twice the light that he was, and "looks" to be eating. It's hard to tell if he ate the food or if it's sitting under him somewhere.

Is there anything that can be done, or is this a waiting game?

tgfrench · #18 12/28/2007, 05:52 AM

WAIT.