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View Full Version : RBTA.... help (too little too late unfortunately)


doch
04-15-2005, 02:59 AM
So... I've apparently done something wrong. My new RBTA has died. I'm VERY upset about the whole situation. I have no idea what I did wrong. I'll fill you in on the details... maybe someone out there can tell me where I screwed up.
90gal tank been set up for about 4 months now. Chemistry is all good. Maroon clown hosting in RBTA (while it was alive) 260W power compact on for about 12 hours/day, then lunar lights on 24 hours/day (probably no effect, but why not mention it) I put it in the center of my tank and it tripled in size over the first day. Hardly moved at all (maybe 2 inches or so. Day 2: Still huge. Day 3 came home in the morning (before lights had come on) and found it all shrivelled up... to the point that I thought it was dead then. Left it be as it was still attached to a rock. It stayed shrivelled up all day until the lights were about to go out, and then perked up (not as big, but gave me hope) Day 4 EARLY in the morning, woke up to find it still looking OK. Came home from work to find him shrivelled up. Day 5 about 7pm found it looking decent, but found 2 very distinct discs (couldn't tell if there were 2 mouths. I was relieved thinking that this whole situation was due to it splitting!!! Day 6 Shrivelled. All evidence of second disc gone, RBTA had moved to back, dark part of the tank. Day 7, came home to find it on the ground shrivelled (but still red) and not looking well. Reached in and found there to be a hole right through it. Clown fish still very protective of it. Disposed of it.
Anyone out there that can fill me in I would greatly appreciate it.
My only theories are light and pH fluctuations caused problems, but realistically, I have NO IDEA what went wrong. An RBTA is something that I VERY badly want in my tank. Hopefully I can try again... with help maybe????

Thanks for any help.

doch
04-15-2005, 03:17 AM
One more thing... On day 2 or so I gave it a cube of squid. Took a few tries to get it to fully stick, but it ate the whole thing.

medic_eva
04-15-2005, 04:17 AM
well, all i can say for the next time (i know it's not any consolation for this) is wait until your tank is at least a year old and all your levels are absolutely constant. that's what i've heard in general about anemones. that really sucks though. sorry to hear it! also, was it maybe just splitting? i think i've heard something about them splitting, maybe someone knows better.

good luck with your tank!

eva

Salinity Now
04-15-2005, 04:58 AM
This is a pretty good read, hopefully it helps. http://www.carlosreef.com/AnemoneFAQ.pdf

Rikko
04-15-2005, 07:49 AM
:(

They tend to be fairly tough little buggers, I'm surprised you lost him given the quality of your setup and monitoring. Do you have any other corals in there whose behaviour might give you an indication of overall water quality? I find xenia great for that.

How long was your acclimation? A poorly acclimated animal can take days to show symptoms.

Delphinus
04-15-2005, 03:31 PM
The fact of the matter is that you may well have done nothing wrong.

Anemones that are sold tend not to be captive clones, but rather, recently collected and imported specimens. These guys are suffering a lot of stress and a lot simply don't make the transition from the pristine wild to captive conditions. Those that do, tend to be very hardy, but many in fact most probably do not make it.

A new tank is undergoing a lot of flux, and it takes several months, really, for it to truly stabilize into anything resembling a sort of equilibrium. That's why some people (myself included) tend to recommend waiting 6 months to a year. There's also a secondary benefit, during those 6-12 months you're probably reading, plus experimenting on your tank, and so on, and at the end of that you're far better armed than you were at the beginning. I'm not saying that this is what happened here, I'm just explaining why I tell people to wait six months.

Trust me, your lighting did not kill the anemone, so eliminate that worry right away. Lighting (or lack thereof) can not kill within a couple of days.

The feeding the squid thing right away is maybe something I wouldn't have done. Squid is a heavy meaty food. I've found that with new specimens, due to the stress of collection/shipping/multiple-tanks-along-the-way-to-your-home, sometimes the metabolism just isn't there yet while in the adjustment period. The risk here is that the food may decompose faster than it can be digested, opening the door to some kind of opportunistic infection.

But then, it may have been doomed from the get-go. It's hard to say.

Anyhow I'm sorry for your loss, don't be too discouraged. Sometimes it just happens.

Bob I
04-15-2005, 03:42 PM
That shrivelling thing is very common. It does not mean it is dead. Both the RBTA's I had did that regularly. All I did was leave them alone, and they came back later. :cool:

Delphinus
04-15-2005, 03:46 PM
Well .. shrivelling in and of itself. But a hole through the middle... that's probably not good.

But basically I think Bob does have a point: an anemone is only well and truly "dead" if it is a pile of snotty, smelly goo. If there is any integrity to the flesh, then it's not dead (not yet anyhow). Something to keep in mind I suppose.

doch
04-16-2005, 05:04 PM
So... From what I gather next time don't feed it until it is a little more established, make sure that everything is very stable, and I should be OK? I hope so... I really want one! To answer Rikko: the only other problem that I have noticed is that my Finger Leather doesn't like to open up very often. I don't know if this is a common thing, but it has been like that basically since I got it so I stopped worrying about it months ago. As well, ther is a little group of coral (one of those ones that you pay no attention to - came on a chunk of rock, isn't very nice and is pretty small) has disappeared.... dead I assume? Delphinus: It still did have colour and distinct tentacles and looked like an amemone, but it was very shrivelled and the hole through the moddle of it was about an inch in dieameter.... I would have been able to put at least 2 fingers through it. I contemplated keeping it to see what would happen just in case there was enough life left in it, but due to the whole I figured that I was just asking to have an amonia spike if and when it officially died.... so I turfed it. The crappy part is that because of how it was acting for the first couple of days I thought "WOW, that thing is doing AWESOME!!!" Damnit. Anyways, Thanks again for all the tips, hopefully next time I'll have a little better luck!

doch
04-16-2005, 05:05 PM
Something else I just thought of... I use tap water. Could this have been a problem?

doch
05-17-2005, 02:24 AM
So here's my latest update on my sad first try and my seemingly happy second try at the coveted RBTA. About a month after the first unsuccessful attemp I got convinced by my LFS to try again. So I did. The first day it shrivelled up again and I started to FREAK OUT! Days 2 and 3 all seemed well and good. Day four and 5 and 6... Shrivelled... again!!! So everything seemed to be happening the exact same. RBTA seemed happy at night, and not happy during the day. I did a dual pH test and discovered that there was a swing of about .5 (8.4 being the high, and 7.9 being the low) Talked to LFS about said problems and had a few reccomendations from them. 1. (My idea) throw some caulerpa (sp?) and some light in my sump for overnight photosynthesis. This completely rectified my pH swing... now steady at about 8.3 2. get as much of the crappy cheap salt (Instant Ocean) out as possible and switch to something higher quality (Formula) So I did a 20-25% water change with Formaul salt. 3. pH buffer to 8.3 (not sure that this was necasary, but no harm done, that's for sure. So the short sum up to this long story is that it seems that my pH fluctuations were causing extreme unhappiness in this anemone, and even worse in the last one. So my reccomendation to EVERYONE is if you can, have some night time photosynthesis, and don't cheap out on your salt!!! Everything else in my tank seems to have not been affected by these problems, but the RBTA's sure are sensitive to such situations. Anyways... I sure am happy that my new little buddy is doing as well as it seems to be now!!!!

rickjames
05-17-2005, 02:56 AM
How long was your acclimation? A poorly acclimated animal can take days to show symptoms.

I don't think you answered this question, it could have been your problem? They should be drip aclimated for AT LEAST a couple hours... but glad to hear that your second one is doing good.

albert_dao
05-17-2005, 04:17 AM
I don't mean to whip out really poor advice here, but here's a bit of a take from another perspective:

I introduced my BTA's and RBTA's to my tank when it was only a month or so old (keeping in mind all my rock was cured) and they did fine. Hell, they even cloned at an alarming rate.

Also, I spent a whole 15 minutes acclimating them (I was in a hurry).

Lastly, I've even had to tear one of these things in half to save it from the powerhead -- I ended up with two anemones there perfectly healthy

Anyway, my point here is that these anemones are really tough and more likely then not, you probably got a poorly shipped specimen (as Tony said).

bulletsworld
05-17-2005, 04:50 PM
That shrivelling thing is very common. It does not mean it is dead. Both the RBTA's I had did that regularly. All I did was leave them alone, and they came back later. :cool:

Well .. shrivelling in and of itself. But a hole through the middle... that's probably not good.But basically I think Bob does have a point: an anemone is only well and truly "dead" if it is a pile of snotty, smelly goo. If there is any integrity to the flesh, then it's not dead



I read this post and thought...OOoHhh NOOOoooooo... He probably wasn't dead! I have found that RBTA are VERY sensitive especially the first time in your tank. I have a really fussy RBTA that shrivells still on occasion. A while back I too had the same problem of the mouth opening wide, deflated, hiding in a dark shady spot and looking completely lifeless, collapsing. Although I was tempted to disgard thinking its completely dead...I left it, it was only a few days later that it recovered itself. SoOoO glad I left it! :eek: I will post when I get my internet hooked back up at home and show you pic's I took back then of that happening to me. Later I found out from others that happened to them to. After talking with others that house RBTA's, they told me RBTA don't do well in captivity and takes a while for them to adjust and that they also don't tolerate poor water quality, not hardy as LTA. Which my LTA was doing great while this other RBTA did this deflating thing, it confused me. On occasion though my RBTA still collaspes & comes back. Why though, I have yet to discover..hmm...

Also the shrivelled on and off thing I have a theory of my own, which not sure its applied to you but just a thought. Do you have actinic's? Mine would do fine and not shrivell every few days when I didn't use my actinic's. Figured this might be the reason it crawled away under a rock. *scratching my head* Was it coincidence though?

I will keep following this post to see what comes up.


:neutral:

BCOrchidGuy
05-17-2005, 05:06 PM
Nothing wrong with IO salt, many people use it with excellent results. Just keep in mind it doesn't have enhanced Ca or Mg, mind you, the Ca and Mg in the enhanced forumlas is used up rather quickly if I'm not mistaken.

Doug

danny zubot
05-17-2005, 05:19 PM
I tend to agree, anemones aren't dead until they are a big pile of goo. A sure fire way to tell is to reach in there and gently pull at one of the tenticles. It it comes off in your fingers its dead. Another way to tell especially if it hosts clowns is that they will "prune" it. When my last GBTA was on the way out my perc would tear off dead tissue from the anemone. I've seen this happen with ritteries as well.

muck
05-17-2005, 05:54 PM
I tend to agree, anemones aren't dead until they are a big pile of goo. A sure fire way to tell is to reach in there and gently pull at one of the tenticles. It it comes off in your fingers its dead. Another way to tell especially if it hosts clowns is that they will "prune" it. When my last GBTA was on the way out my perc would tear off dead tissue from the anemone. I've seen this happen with ritteries as well.
Have you tried the smell test Danny? :razz: :mrgreen:

doch
05-18-2005, 12:44 AM
So, in retrospect I now realize that the first one was not dead at the time of disposal. At the time I was convinced that it would soon be, so rather than take the chance and have it crash the rest of my tank I got rid of it. I just wish that I would have tried these new things to help with the first one. Hind sight is 20/20 I guess. As far as either of them being poorly shipped specimens... unless I've been lied to I doubt that this is a possibility. Both LFS' that I purchased them from have claimed them all to be captive clones... I'm assuming from the same source since they show up on the same day at both places. So realistically, one can only assume them to be in relatively decent shape. Since the water change and pH buffer and caulerpa addition I haven't seen RBTA #2 shrivel up at all. One morning it didn't look as perky as it has been, but soon enough it came back and ballooned up nicely. What are the theories out there? Are RBTA's sensitive to pH swings? Or possibly to low pH in general? This is what my hunch tells me. I'm not sure abuot the salt situation... but why not use what other people recommend? One more question: Neither of them have had the bulbs in their tentacles once they get in my tank... but they did at the LFS'. Why is this? Anyways, any theories on this would be appreciated! Ciao.

doch
05-18-2005, 01:09 AM
Rick James and Rikko: I didn't answer this.. either time... somehow missed it. I didn't do the drip acclimation, but spent about an hour or so adding little bits of water from a cup. I had heard that they do need good acclimation periods and since I normally rip and dump, this is a LONG acclimation for my tank! For the record: I have yet to have had problems with the rip and dump method.