What should I do with this RBTA?

[daniella3d]

Hi,

I just bought a rose bubble tip anemone 3 days ago and it went roaming under a large piece of liverock, where it is shaded from the light and it has stayed there the whole time.

At first it was stetching its tentacles through a little hole to reach the light but now today I see no tentacles, just a white stump that is the body of the anemone.

It is a clone that had split about a week ago. Should I try to remove it from there and bring it under the light or should I leave it there and eventually it will come out? It does not look like it's decomposing or anything but it looks like it has no tentacles or as if it is hiding them.

[Chin_Lee]

Just leave it. It sounds like its going through some stress. Removing it may damage it even more. Once it recuperates, it will move out into the light by itself.

[rzadun]

I have had RBTA for several years. The main anemone has split many times and I now have 10 of them. They like to attach underneath a rock and extend out to have their tentacles in the current and light. Leave it stay where it wants. It will not stay where you put it unless it likes the spot.

[RuGlu6]

Trying to "help" an anemone by manually moving them usually makes it worse.
try changing the environment around it instead.
1-Move the power head away from it just gentle flow (Tunze is best)
2- move the rock that its attached to so it will catch more light
3- Do not bother it too much even once or twice a week is too much shock
4-Try feeding but do not force food in to it, make a food paste or small chunks and with pumps OFF spread it over the animal.

It will have better chance to survive if you leave it along.
Most important: If your anemone is not showing sings of good health that means your water is not up to standard.

Go through basics and correct all the parameters first (measure all that you can Salinity, Ammonia No2, No3 etc) Do a few SMALL (5% volume) water changes per week.
Keep your fingers crossed.

[daniella3d]

The flow is not very strong in my aquarium, so that's surely not the problem unless it want stagnant water :)

It is currently under the liverock in some sort of cave and receive practically no light at all.

I cannot move that rock as it is glued and attached and it is now a block of liverock covered in corals and SPS. NO way to remove this without collapsing and destroying everything.

I definitly cannot feed either because I cannot reach it and it has its head upside down, hanging with its foot on the ceiling of the cave, sort of.

My water parameters are very good. Nitrates less than 2ppm, phosphates undetectible, calcium 440, alkalinity 8, mag 1400, ph 8.2 to 8.4 during the day.

I also feed my tank with amino acid, coral frenzy, cyclopeeze, reef roid etc and oyster eggs. I recently did 4 water changes before getting the anemone because I had a tank crash due to bad Kent carbon, but most of my SPS are now recovering and the anemone got there after the crash when coral were showing sign of recovery.

I have no idea what was in that carbon that created the bleaching event and the death of a few of my corals, but I hope it's gone now with fresh Seachem carbon and I will put polyfilter as well. I have another anemone, a maximini, that went through the crash without any trouble.


Trying to "help" an anemone by manually moving them usually makes it worse.
try changing the environment around it instead.
1-Move the power head away from it just gentle flow (Tunze is best)
2- move the rock that its attached to so it will catch more light
3- Do not bother it too much even once or twice a week is too much shock
4-Try feeding but do not force food in to it, make a food paste or small chunks and with pumps OFF spread it over the animal.

It will have better chance to survive if you leave it along.
Most important: If your anemone is not showing sings of good health that means your water is not up to standard.

Go through basics and correct all the parameters first (measure all that you can Salinity, Ammonia No2, No3 etc) Do a few SMALL (5% volume) water changes per week.
Keep your fingers crossed.

[reefwars]

daniella your nem will be fine its perfectly normal for clones to hide out untill they are fully healed. once it gets hungry it will move itself so long as its not being pinned to its location by aggressive fish.if it doest move coax it by useing something to shade the spot hes in and he will move to the closest possible light source around him:)


lol i think its the golden rule as soon as you get a clone they like naturally move to the worst possible spot they can:P

[reefwars]

I also feed my tank with amino acid, coral frenzy, cyclopeeze, reef roid etc and oyster eggs. I recently did 4 water changes before getting the anemone because I had a tank crash due to bad Kent carbon, but most of my SPS are now recovering and the anemone got there after the crash when coral were showing sign of recovery.




this is another reason why hes in a weird spot hes prob getting enough food from what your feeding and water quality is good enough for him where he is too, im sure once hes healed better he will come out of hiding:P

[daniella3d]

Ok sounds good. :)

I will let it be and not touch it. thanks a lot!

this is another reason why hes in a weird spot hes prob getting enough food from what your feeding and water quality is good enough for him where he is too, im sure once hes healed better he will come out of hiding:P

[Reef Tank Engineer]

I have a pink tip anemone and he does the same thing if i move him he just moves back down the rock and into the shade.
My carpet anemone shrinks when the blue antinics are on then opens back up once the daylights come on or when moon lights are on.

[reefwars]

I have a pink tip anemone and he does the same thing if i move him he just moves back down the rock and into the shade.
My carpet anemone shrinks when the blue antinics are on then opens back up once the daylights come on or when moon lights are on.



are you feeding your carpet?? what kind of carpet is it??

[Reef Tank Engineer]

Hes a green carpet and he gets fed brine shrimp, mysis, black tiger shrimp
The pink tip i think might be from hati

[Money pit]

Ideally the nem should have stayed in the same tank where it split until it had time to heal. For now, until it forms a new mouth, it can't eat but it can absorb NO3 from the water, and use light as nourishment. Unfortunately it sounds like light is a no go too. As it is, it may take a while to heal with 2 of its 3 sources of nourishment impaired. For now if it was mine, I would leave it a couple more days, maybe a week total since you first put it in the tank. Between splitting and moving, its had a pretty adventurous time. So keep an eye on it for the week, to give it time to relax, maybe it will come out on its own. If it wont come out, use the powerhead trick to get it to move. The added light will help a lot in recovery, especially if you have low NO3.

[daniella3d]

Well it started to move out of there and it is now outside the cave, so good sign :) it is not getting any smaller, if anything I thing it looks a bit bigger. It also have nice round bubble tips.

Now I just hope it will not sting any of my corals.