AceShadow_Reefer
Community Member
Hey all,
A while back I made the mistake of purchasing a Colorado Sunburst BTA... Here's the story: (if you wanna skip straight to my struggle go right to the end)
I was excited. I had a very successful nano softy tank with 2 clowns and I was driving home with my very first anemone... A beautiful black widow. I took it home and followed proper acclimation protocol, and placed it into the tank. One week later I magically had two as the nem had split!! I was ecstatic! I had just spent $250 on a nem and now I have 2?! "Nems are amazing moneymakers and they're gorgeous too! I should buy nicer ones" I thought to myself.
Fast forward a month or so and one of my favorite fish stores was having a live sale during quarantine and I was determined to secure the grand prize... A beautiful Colorado Sunburst BTA. After connecting my computer to the Ethernet to ensure the best connection possible, I bid on a couple coral to make sure I was the fastest bidder... and then the time came for the CSB... as soon as I could, I texted the code number to reserve it and I won!! I had never been thrilled to drop so much money on an aquatic creature before.
There isn't a TON of information out about CSBs unfortunately so I thought raising one would be like raising other nems... Oh was I wrong... after following proper acclimation protocol I placed it into my tank with my black widow. Within a week I noticed it getting upset so I moved it into another tank that had green bubble tips. It was doing okay in that tank and I figured it was recovering so I left it there for a while... Made sure it was getting good light and a little flow, and occasionally fed it. I noticed it starting to get a bit clear and I got worried. One of my green bubble tips made its way into the overflow and got a bit ripped up but nothing too serious but I took this as an opportunity to get both the nems out of that tank because I had read recently that CSB likes to be with it's own kind only. Over the next couple months it started getting it's bubbles back and looking less stringy and more like the beautiful BTA it's supposed to look like... And then I sold the tank it was in and transferred it to a brand new tank that I started from scratch but using the same live rock, water, sand and media. I made sure everything settled for a couple weeks and added some nitrifying bacteria before adding corals, don't worry. But I placed the nem in the tank and within 2 weeks it had retracted it's tentacles and was squished between the rock and some diatoms on the sandbed. I 3D printed it a nem cage out of reef safe ABS and placed it in there in a medium shaded spot at the top of the tank (because it kept moving away from the light) and here we are. This was about 2 weeks ago.
The problem at hand: I have a $1k nem that looks like a red booger instead of the gorgeous masterpiece I received, and I am desperately trying to save it. I am running carbon 24/7, I have a skimmer, chaeto in the back, am doing weekly water changes, am running phosguard in a little box in the tank, and have a LOT of live rock in there. The tank is a nano mixed reef 13.5 gallon with a Radion xr15 pro. SPS is pretty happy, LPS is happy, softies are overjoyed. Tank is as stable as I can get it right now, parameters are solid and I can update the post with those when I get to testing in a couple days. Any advice would be phenomenal. My beautiful nem, I just feel so so bad. I want to bring it back to its former glory so my baby clowns and I can enjoy it and watch it grow. It's foot seems okay, it does eat when I feed it reef roids or the tiniest piece of mysis, but it has no tentacles. It can still move, and fairly fast too (when I turn the little nem box so it's no longer in the shadow, I find it moved to the shadowy spot again). I know it's alive and I know it's hanging on by an ever thinning rope but I will not give up and I would appreciate the help and support of this awesome community to help save this nem! Thanks all!!!
(The attached photos are in chronological order by date)
A while back I made the mistake of purchasing a Colorado Sunburst BTA... Here's the story: (if you wanna skip straight to my struggle go right to the end)
I was excited. I had a very successful nano softy tank with 2 clowns and I was driving home with my very first anemone... A beautiful black widow. I took it home and followed proper acclimation protocol, and placed it into the tank. One week later I magically had two as the nem had split!! I was ecstatic! I had just spent $250 on a nem and now I have 2?! "Nems are amazing moneymakers and they're gorgeous too! I should buy nicer ones" I thought to myself.
Fast forward a month or so and one of my favorite fish stores was having a live sale during quarantine and I was determined to secure the grand prize... A beautiful Colorado Sunburst BTA. After connecting my computer to the Ethernet to ensure the best connection possible, I bid on a couple coral to make sure I was the fastest bidder... and then the time came for the CSB... as soon as I could, I texted the code number to reserve it and I won!! I had never been thrilled to drop so much money on an aquatic creature before.
There isn't a TON of information out about CSBs unfortunately so I thought raising one would be like raising other nems... Oh was I wrong... after following proper acclimation protocol I placed it into my tank with my black widow. Within a week I noticed it getting upset so I moved it into another tank that had green bubble tips. It was doing okay in that tank and I figured it was recovering so I left it there for a while... Made sure it was getting good light and a little flow, and occasionally fed it. I noticed it starting to get a bit clear and I got worried. One of my green bubble tips made its way into the overflow and got a bit ripped up but nothing too serious but I took this as an opportunity to get both the nems out of that tank because I had read recently that CSB likes to be with it's own kind only. Over the next couple months it started getting it's bubbles back and looking less stringy and more like the beautiful BTA it's supposed to look like... And then I sold the tank it was in and transferred it to a brand new tank that I started from scratch but using the same live rock, water, sand and media. I made sure everything settled for a couple weeks and added some nitrifying bacteria before adding corals, don't worry. But I placed the nem in the tank and within 2 weeks it had retracted it's tentacles and was squished between the rock and some diatoms on the sandbed. I 3D printed it a nem cage out of reef safe ABS and placed it in there in a medium shaded spot at the top of the tank (because it kept moving away from the light) and here we are. This was about 2 weeks ago.
The problem at hand: I have a $1k nem that looks like a red booger instead of the gorgeous masterpiece I received, and I am desperately trying to save it. I am running carbon 24/7, I have a skimmer, chaeto in the back, am doing weekly water changes, am running phosguard in a little box in the tank, and have a LOT of live rock in there. The tank is a nano mixed reef 13.5 gallon with a Radion xr15 pro. SPS is pretty happy, LPS is happy, softies are overjoyed. Tank is as stable as I can get it right now, parameters are solid and I can update the post with those when I get to testing in a couple days. Any advice would be phenomenal. My beautiful nem, I just feel so so bad. I want to bring it back to its former glory so my baby clowns and I can enjoy it and watch it grow. It's foot seems okay, it does eat when I feed it reef roids or the tiniest piece of mysis, but it has no tentacles. It can still move, and fairly fast too (when I turn the little nem box so it's no longer in the shadow, I find it moved to the shadowy spot again). I know it's alive and I know it's hanging on by an ever thinning rope but I will not give up and I would appreciate the help and support of this awesome community to help save this nem! Thanks all!!!
(The attached photos are in chronological order by date)
