anemone weirdness

[SkyAurelia]

to start every time i buy a BTA it dies in my tank for some reason i cannot figure out
i have a pink tip anemone that i have had for 6 months and its as happy as can be
but for some reason the last BTA i had lived 1 and half months and died today.

i was told my issue was phosphate but im a little on the fence about that sense my other nem is perfectly fine and so are my corals.

this is issue seems to only effct BTA's and i really want to keep a BTA for my clowns but after 4 of them dieing for seemingly no reason im not sure what to do any more.

Tank Age: 2.5 years
salinity: 1.025
ammonia: 0.05
nitirite: 0.5
nitrate: 5
phophates: 0.35 (been trying to get this one down, i added phosgaurd, spongemedia for phos, and have done a 50% change attempting to lower this, originaly was 0.46)

mostly i dont understand why everything in my tank seems happy but i cant seem to keep a BTA not sure what i am missing sense there supposed to be easier then the other nems.....clearly there not though.

 

[MnFish1]

to start every time i buy a BTA it dies in my tank for some reason i cannot figure out
i have a pink tip anemone that i have had for 6 months and its as happy as can be
but for some reason the last BTA i had lived 1 and half months and died today.

i was told my issue was phosphate but im a little on the fence about that sense my other nem is perfectly fine and so are my corals.

this is issue seems to only effct BTA's and i really want to keep a BTA for my clowns but after 4 of them dieing for seemingly no reason im not sure what to do any more.

Tank Age: 2.5 years
salinity: 1.025
ammonia: 0.05
nitirite: 0.5
nitrate: 5
phophates: 0.35 (been trying to get this one down, i added phosgaurd, spongemedia for phos, and have done a 50% change attempting to lower this, originaly was 0.46)

mostly i dont understand why everything in my tank seems happy but i cant seem to keep a BTA not sure what i am missing sense there supposed to be easier then the other nems.....clearly there not though.

There could be a bacteria or virus in your tank affecting your BTA - more likely is that the dealer you're buying from has different water parameters. And I would get the PO4 down. Depending on the size of your tank - it may be that there is a toxin competing with your other anaemone. are you using carbon

 

[Red_Beard]

Some nems cannot tolerate being with other types of nems. Theory is that they sense they aren't alone and fight chemically. One of them will eventually just wither into nothing. It could be this issue, if all your other parameter are on point and other nem is happy.

 

[SkyAurelia]

my other nem came from same place, petco we only have petco we can buy them from here cause the other shops all closed down or dont do salt.

yes i am useing carbon, i always keep carbon on my tank, if its a bacteria or toxin would a uv sterlalizer help? i have one put away that i used ages ago.

 

[SkyAurelia]

i thought of that but the nems where kept together originaly, got them all from same place and they had both of these two nems together for a long time before i bought the one and then the other a few months later.

 

[SkyAurelia]

There could be a bacteria or virus in your tank affecting your BTA - more likely is that the dealer you're buying from has different water parameters. And I would get the PO4 down. Depending on the size of your tank - it may be that there is a toxin competing with your other anaemone. are you using carbon

my other nem came from same place, petco we only have petco we can buy them from here cause the other shops all closed down or dont do salt.

yes i am useing carbon, i always keep carbon on my tank, if its a bacteria or toxin would a uv sterlalizer help? i have one put away that i used ages ago.

any suggestion on how to get the PO4 down i have been working on it but its hard to get it to go down i have noticed

 

[Red_Beard]

Could be bacterial then, as mnfish1 suggested. BTAs are typically quite hardy. Ive had them in po4 ranges from .05 clear to .6 with no issue, I dont think it is that. Could be light/ flow related too, but usually they will wander around a lot of that is the issue.

 

[SkyAurelia]

Could be bacterial then, as mnfish1 suggested. BTAs are typically quite hardy. Ive had them in po4 ranges from .05 clear to .6 with no issue, I dont think it is that. Could be light/ flow related too, but usually they will wander around a lot of that is the issue.

i have no way to measure par all i can say i have a DIY light with 56 3W leds but no way to tell if i got it posistioned high enough, but the pink tip seems to stay in one spot on the back wall about mid way up

 

[Red_Beard]

You have any pics of one in situ?

 

[SkyAurelia]

not sure what situ is but here is pics

this is the pink tip its fine as far as i can tell

this is old picture sense this BTA died today

 

[vetteguy53081]

to start every time i buy a BTA it dies in my tank for some reason i cannot figure out
i have a pink tip anemone that i have had for 6 months and its as happy as can be
but for some reason the last BTA i had lived 1 and half months and died today.

i was told my issue was phosphate but im a little on the fence about that sense my other nem is perfectly fine and so are my corals.

this is issue seems to only effct BTA's and i really want to keep a BTA for my clowns but after 4 of them dieing for seemingly no reason im not sure what to do any more.

Tank Age: 2.5 years
salinity: 1.025
ammonia: 0.05
nitirite: 0.5
nitrate: 5
phophates: 0.35 (been trying to get this one down, i added phosgaurd, spongemedia for phos, and have done a 50% change attempting to lower this, originaly was 0.46)

mostly i dont understand why everything in my tank seems happy but i cant seem to keep a BTA not sure what i am missing sense there supposed to be easier then the other nems.....clearly there not though.

Impossible to tell without pics and bacteria often blames
I see phosphate an issue already and can be light or flow issue especially if insufficient

 

[Red_Beard]

In situ is a Latin phrase meaning 'in the original place'.
That does look like what others have reported with nem on nem chemical wars. Withering. It is still opened up a bit but not fully inflated. Could also be light related though, hard to tell. Do you have any other coral in the tank? I didn't see any in the pictures

 

[SkyAurelia]

the duncan is in the picture in the lower right corner but its closed up partialy cause i moved the rock its on when i was looking for my conch that was mia, the green star polyp is all sorts of out though

i only have these two corals then some macroalgea cheato and some kind of pink leaf thing

note: normally the duncan is out more then this, i moved its rock a while ago.

 

[SkyAurelia]

also the light is brighter then it looks in the pictures not sure why my camera shows more blue then it is and dimmer then it is

that said algea grows like crazy

 

[SkyAurelia]

did some research, it seems phosphats are fine and some even report po4 as high as 1.2ppm but also have nigh nitrates, my nitrates i think might be to low, i think my filtration is to powerfull, thats fine i will add more CuC and fishies.

that said i think you are right about the chimacle warfare, i remember when i first added the BTA then pink tip suddenly got unhappy and started running to the top of the tank and staying there, i moved the pink tip back down to the rocks where it took its original spot again, but that only happened after the BTA was pretty much done for, and i also now that i am thinking about it remember noticing the BTA was always moving like it was trying to get away from something, so i am going to assume i just cant have a BTA.

 

[Entity77]

Likely not PO3 issue, my BTA's live in 0 to 1ppm+ without issue, they just get browner with higher PO3. One issue with buying from a chain store is that, they may have already gone down the path of death but may not show it only until it is in your tank. Make sure your BTA's are eating, if not, something is wrong. Sure if you other corals are doing "fine," you can try going down route of antibiotics/cipro as a last resort.

 

[ThisIsTheWay]

This is my RBTA with a green BTA behind it and both are happy and growing (RBTA just recently split). I am starting to bring them down but tank nutrients have been high for at least half a year without issues (NO3 50-100+ppm, PO4 0.25-0.5ppm). They are at the top of my rock work close to the surface under decent strength lighting (I don’t actually know what the PAR is) and they are very happy.

As @Entity77 mentioned, I believe I have seen people who had issues treat their anemones with cipro and that helped. I think the theory is that some anemones end up with bacteria that other nems aren’t immune to, and so when added to the same tank one ends up withering away. The idea with cipro is to treat for unusual bacteria to avoid that situation.
I have most commonly seen this discussed in relation to black widow BTAs but it is not exclusive to them.