BTA giving up the ghost.

[Chrisv.]

After nearly a year in my established tank, my BTA has taken a serious month long turn for the worst. It has shrunken by 80% (and stayed small) and has turned grayish and been on the move in a serious way for the last few weeks. He has been gaping at times and really seems to be barely clinging to life.

I have come to terms with the reality that I'm spite of efforts to make him happy, he is not going to make it.

Now comes the hard part:

I REALLY don't want him to continue to slowly deteriorate only to poison my tank and get sucked I to a vortech while I'm at work. In anticipation of that inevitably I added some extra chemipure blue to the tank.

On one of his more pathetic days this weekend I tried blowing him off of the rocks with a turkey baster. He did not come off.

If this were a coral, I would pull it from the tank and toss it. Not so easy with an anemone, which has it's pedal disc wedged into a crack in the rocks.

So, I have an unpleasant question to ask. How do I remove this guy before the inevitable happens?

 

[blaxsun]

Wet-dry vac? I had a half dozen that all followed a similar path and most just shrivelled up and died before I could take any kind of preventative action. That or "the crew" got to it before I did.

 

[Chrisv.]

Wet-dry vac?

Because of where he is in the tank, this would be very hard. I was thinking about maybe kalk injection, as with aptasia... But I'm not sure if he would fall off or sort of melt in place.

 

[Glenner’sreef]

After nearly a year in my established tank, my BTA has taken a serious month long turn for the worst. It has shrunken by 80% (and stayed small) and has turned grayish and been on the move in a serious way for the last few weeks. He has been gaping at times and really seems to be barely clinging to life.

I have come to terms with the reality that I'm spite of efforts to make him happy, he is not going to make it.

Now comes the hard part:

I REALLY don't want him to continue to slowly deteriorate only to poison my tank and get sucked I to a vortech while I'm at work. In anticipation of that inevitably I added some extra chemipure blue to the tank.

On one of his more pathetic days this weekend I tried blowing him off of the rocks with a turkey baster. He did not come off.

If this were a coral, I would pull it from the tank and toss it. Not so easy with an anemone, which has it's pedal disc wedged into a crack in the rocks.

So, I have an unpleasant question to ask. How do I remove this guy before the inevitable happens?

A properly directed powerhead may do the trick. If it’s as weak as you say….who knows?