BTA tank went downhill. Help saving remaining anemones

[maroun.c]

A friends bta dominated tank was doing great for years with anemones splitting and filling up.

Over course of 2-3 months a series of mishaps:
Anemones stagnating in tank water after a leak and some.dying while tank got fixed.

P up the roof

Reason was bad water used for top off and water change as per below icp of freshwater

While doing large water to try to help with phosphates
Salinity drop to around 1.023
Salinity spike to 1.029
After faulty water changes

Few anemones were also added before the issue which also is a possibility they came with something but all those anemones were in holding tank for weeks before they were added.

P is being fixed and I know it's very high but is it possible it's the only cause
Could this be a bacterial infection.
Any recommendation on treatment?

Since then all anemones are closed with short tentacles and most have died. Around 15 remaining since then but are closed and with short tentacles since weeks

 

[Isaac Alves]

Parameters sound like they’ve been swinging drastically.

 

[D-Nak]

Can I assume that the red nem with yellow tips at the bottom center of the photo was the newest addition? If so, I'm guessing it was wild. I'm also guessing that it had a pathogen that killed the other anemones.

Your mishaps are unfortunate, but shouldn't cause the demise of all of your nems.

 

[maroun.c]

Can I assume that the red nem with yellow tips at the bottom center of the photo was the newest addition? If so, I'm guessing it was wild. I'm also guessing that it had a pathogen that killed the other anemones.

Your mishaps are unfortunate, but shouldn't cause the demise of all of your nems.

that was a huge pink with blue base BTA he added last, it didn't last long and problems with anemones started a bit after, bout that was months ago and its still ongoing. I tend to think more about the P and PO4 levels in the ICP honestly.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Dang that sucks!

 

[DMG Reef]

This is just anecdotal, but in my experience, high PO4 did not hurt my RBTA's. Mine are almost 6 years old and they have been through a lot of issues during that time. I didn't even start monitoring phosphates until about 3 years ago when I decided to keep acros. At that time, my PO4 was 1.06. The anemones didn't care.

They have survived through 2 temperature spikes in excess of 90 degrees, a salinity spike of 1.030, and of course, high PO4. The only time I lost 2 of my anemones was while battling Dino's.

One tip I have for him - don't be too quick to pull out the sick ones. During the Dino outbreak, my rainbow anemone had turned to mush in the center. I sucked up the mush with a turkey baster leaving the good tentacles intact. The anemone completely healed. I wouldn't recommend that to newbies, but experienced reefers can observe and take further action as needed.

Good luck to him!

 

[chizerbunoi]

The phosphorus shouldn’t be an issue and would just cause nuisance algae growth. But the large water changes to control it is more of an issue. A large salinity swing from 1.023 to 1.029 would stress all of them. I intentionally swing mine by 0.003 via water changes to force them to split. And the majority of them split monthly when I do this. I also found that BTA don’t like Alk spikes via large WC. Just like SPS

I agree that the wild BTA probably did have a pathogen that the captive split ones were not immune to. If it died then the other BTA would have caught it. That plus the salinity swing would stress them out.

I would ride it out and be very slow with anymore parameter changes. Run GFO and lots of carbon. Don’t feed any of the anemones going forward. They are expending their energy to maintain their health and food could easily rot inside them. Once the mouths have closed and the tentacles are longer, try spot feeding a few. Not everyone at once.

Anemones do very well in very dirty tanks. Try leaving the tank without anymore changes and see what happens. Of course if another BTA dies then take it out.

 

[chizerbunoi]

Is your friend dosing anything strange to control algae? Such as hydrogen peroxide? Invertebrates would die off and have no tolerance for that stuff.

 

[jeffchapok]

Agreed, H2O2 irritated my condylactis which then spewed toxins into the water and nuked everything else. I lost a BTA, all my zoas, and many other corals barely survived and are just now getting back to where they were 6 months ago.

The condy turned to jelly and I threw him into my QT tank. Surprisingly it survived. It's only about half the size it once was and it's tentacles aren't long and smooth anymore, but rather jagged. I've returned it to the DT and won't use H2O2 in the tank ever again.

 

[maroun.c]

Is your friend dosing anything strange to control algae? Such as hydrogen peroxide? Invertebrates would die off and have no tolerance for that stuff.

Hes not dosing anything against algae and weirdly has none. Maybe iron deficiency preventing algae growth.

 

[chizerbunoi]

How does he maintain parameters? Is he carbon dosing or using bio pellets? Massive change in bacteria bioload?

 

[D-Nak]

It looks like a typical case of one wild nem infecting the entire lot of established nems. The infection doesn't affect all of the nems at the same time.

 

[Halo_003]

You mentioned the BTAs sitting in stagnate water, were they sitting in no flow? Or just disconnected from the sump?

 

[maroun.c]

How does he maintain parameters? Is he carbon dosing or using bio pellets? Massive change in bacteria bioload?

No carbon dosing as far as I know. Very few fish in the tank and only softies hence he was never worried about a bit of nutrients.

 

[maroun.c]

It looks like a typical case of one wild nem infecting the entire lot of established nems. The infection doesn't affect all of the nems at the same time.

Is that a common thing as I've never heard about this before.

 

[maroun.c]

You mentioned the BTAs sitting in stagnate water, were they sitting in no flow? Or just disconnected from the sump?

He had a tank leak that drained half the tank before he stopped circulation. Water was stagnating in tank and some anemones died. He did remove ones he could see dying then and did water changes after.
Remaining anemones did inflate back for some.time before they started dying again.