Anemone shrinking into themselves: These BTA give me grey hair

[Parkerfishfamily]

I've been looking through every thread on bubble tip anemone I can find, but I want to be sure I'm not missing something.

Display tank is not ready, so BTA are in a quarantine tank with some crabs and snails. The looked so sad when they came out of shipping, then they looked great for all of 5 minutes before wilting. Now they're closing up and I don't know what else I can do. The clown fish in a different quarantine tank are fine, the crabs and snails with the anemone are fine, but these guys can't seem to get started.

Quarantine tank parameters:
Temp: 78 F
Salinity: 1.026

Here's the timeline
- Received Jan 19, Day 1, picture 1 with piece of coral
- Took them out of shipping container, floated them to match the temperature, put them in a bucket of sand in the quarantine tank
- Jan 20, Day 2, they're full and one floated around for a second before landing back in the sand and reattaching to a rock. Picture 2 where they look good.


- Ever since then, they've gone down hill.
- Jan 24, Day 6, Added the crabs and snails, no one was messing with the BTA. Picture 3 of full tank.

- Jan 25, Day 8, They're all sad looking and droopy. I turned the powerhead off while I fed the crabs and some of the brine and mysis shrimp landed on their tentacles and it looked like they pushed it into their mouth. I ate dinner and looked back after an hour and all of a sudden they're headed towards being completely closed up. Picture 4.


I fed them when they were alone in the tank and they didn't droop after feeding. I switched the light from high power LED to a softer incandescent in case it was too much light. I added the powerhead on day 2 after they were attached to their rocks, and they seemed to like the increased flow.

Now that there are crabs in the tank I'm not worried about overfeeding, but other than switching the light back to what it was, I don't know any other factors I can change to help them along. I thought the fish were going to be harder to take care of lol but they're swimming happy and the anemone are sulking.

Thanks for any help you can offer, it's my first tank, but my partner in crime's second reef tank.

 

[TX_REEF]

• Make sure they have rocks with crevices and small caves to grab onto, BTAs don’t like living on sand or on flat rocks
• Don’t feed them too often. 1-2x a week is plenty. It’s normal for nems to appear closed up for a bit after feeding.
• Nems don’t generally do well in new systems (less than 6 mo the old if brand new system) they thrive on stability and maturity of bio-filter and parameters
• Test nitrate and phosphate if you can. Way too high can be problematic for nems, as can zero.
• You need to give them a way to hide from the light if they want to, the flat rocks you have won’t cut it. I’d add a proper rock for them to utilize and put the LED back on. It’s highly unlikely that the soft incandescent light you changed to provides adequate PAR for them.

 

[Parkerfishfamily]

• Make sure they have rocks with crevices and small caves to grab onto, BTAs don’t like living on sand or on flat rocks
• Don’t feed them too often. 1-2x a week is plenty. It’s normal for nems to appear closed up for a bit after feeding.
• Nems don’t generally do well in new systems (less than 6 mo the old if brand new system) they thrive on stability and maturity of bio-filter and parameters
• Test nitrate and phosphate if you can. Way too high can be problematic for nems, as can zero.
• You need to give them a way to hide from the light if they want to, the flat rocks you have won’t cut it. I’d add a proper rock for them to utilize and put the LED back on. It’s highly unlikely that the soft incandescent light you changed to provides adequate PAR for them.

Thank you for the several suggestions. The brighter LEDs seem to be doing them good. I don’t have any bigger rocks for the quarantine tank, and my partner hasn’t added phosphorus or anything because he was waiting for the display tank to be ready. one of the anemones crawled all the way up the side to the water line on top of the power head so I’m headed to the store to find something to add for him to hide under. Not sure if they want more or less light because I would think they would close up with too much but when I added brighter light they opened. And he’s at the top, closer to the light, but looks sad and droopy so maybe he was looking for a way around the light. Thanks again for the suggestions, working on implementing them one at a time

 

[areohen]

how long has your QT tank been running?

You said your Display is not ready so I'm assuming its cycling. If that's the case, you might run into problems keeping the nem alive and happy if your tank is not established.

Nems usually take a couple of days to adjust to a new system.

I would also find something to cover that powerhead. Unless you like chopped suey

 

[Katrina71]

My baby nem would sleep that way. Always. When it got mature, it did not.

 

[aggrofish]

1.) add more rock
2.) BTAs LOVE light mine always go to the highest par spot they can find
3.) BTAs are cheap give them away or sell them until you are ready

 

[Parkerfishfamily]

Update: put them in the display tank and they stayed looking horrible for about a month before they vanished. Assuming they separated into pieces and got cleaned up by the shrimp and crabs. Not sure what to do differently to try again, other than the stronger light. It seems like the quarantine process was too hard on them.

 

[Jekyl]

Nems need maturity and stability. A quarantine and a new tank can't provide either of those. Give it another 6-8 months before trying again. When you do, find a local reefer selling some. Much better health, prices and no shipping.