RBTA shriveled up and hot looking good

cdness · Mar 28, 2013

So I have had a beautiful RBTA since about 6 months into the hobby. It has been with me for at least 6 years. For all of those years it has been on the same rock and never moved off the rock. It would circle but not all out go for a stroll.

About a couple weeks ago it decided to all of a sudden go for a massive stroll and stopped on the main rock structure about a foot away from the normal rock. I mentioned to my wife to try irritate it a bit to get it to walk back to the rock so she blew on the edge of the foot to coax it back to the normal rock. Instead it immediately split into 3 parts.

All 3 parts had healed so I sold off the two to get new lamps for the tank. I replaced 3 out of 6 lamps. The nem I held onto is now looking horrible. It isn't puffed up and is looking limp. I made a cage around it so the clowns wouldn't tear into it, but it doesn't look like that is helping at all.

Is there anything I can do to save my nem?

revhtree · Mar 28, 2013

What does it look like when it's getting flow? Does it have a gaping mouth?

cdness · Mar 28, 2013

No the mouth is not gaping... Should I put it into more flow?

I do have splits out in the club so I can buy one back again from someone. I just don't want to lose my nem I have had forever. :cry:

I am also losing a clam as well that is close to the nem... I will more than likely pull the clam out tonight if it doesn't recover.

cet98 · Mar 28, 2013

just a thought but when you replaced the 3 lamps, did you acclimate the tank?
the stress of splitting takes a toll on nems and perhaps the addition of new lamps may have stressed it out more...

cdness · Mar 28, 2013

Yes, lowered the lighting period and am slowly building it back up. All I replaced are blue plus lamps on the 4 foot T-5 setup. The nem is actually directly under a center brace between the LED and T-5 fixtures so it got a little of both.

bct15 · Mar 28, 2013

Dieing bubble tips reek havoc on a tank, that is probably what is wrong with our clam. They release their nematocysts into the water column, and cause a spike in undesirable minerals. When my two rbta anemones kicked the bucket it kick started a six month tank crash.

FYI the two I had (from a split) didn't move for a year. Then when they started to die, they started climbing all over the place, stayed deflated looking (but somewhat open) and whithered away. Neither one was sticky at all. When they started wilting a lot of other stuff started to look bad then started to die within a couple days. I wish I would have pulled them out now and treated them separately.

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cdness · Mar 28, 2013

Well if that is the case I would rather be safe than sorry and pull it tonight and get another split later... My poor clowns will be lost without their RBTA

bct15 · Mar 28, 2013

cdness said:
Well if that is the case I would rather be safe than sorry and pull it tonight and get another split later... My poor clowns will be lost without their RBTA

If yours is exhibiting behavior like I described in my second paragraph then I recommend you remove it. I'm sure some people have saved bta in that condition in their displays before but the amount of loss I incurred wasn't worth it. Especially considering I have like 5 10 gallons in the shed I could have out them in.

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