Help with BTA

purple_jeep · Jan 16, 2024

Hi All,

So a few months ago I purchased a fairly decent sized BTA from the LFS and added him to my year old 120G tank. He moved around a bit and then settled down thankfully in the front of the tank (although the clowns are at the back so have not hosted). He was doing fine for a while ate some cooked shrimp we gave him which was cool but for maybe the last month he has been very closed down and grumpy and he is often even smaller than this. I have tried changing the flow and the light no difference any other suggestions? I have attached two pictures one with him happy (and algae everywhere) and one with the tank cleaner but him unhappy.

Parameters are: Salinity 1.024, PH 8.2, PO 0.155, NO 3.3 Alkalinity 8.1 Mg 1240 Ca 500

Thanks!

TX_REEF · Jan 16, 2024

how long was it happy before it was unhappy? how long after introducing it did you feed it? How is your lighting and flow? overage of light and flow can cause retraction

purple_jeep · Jan 16, 2024

TX_REEF said:
how long was it happy before it was unhappy? how long after introducing it did you feed it? How is your lighting and flow? overage of light and flow can cause retraction

Maybe 4 months of happy, I have a picture from Aug 11 last year so I had him then at least and I only noticed the unhappy before Christmas. Probably a month before I tried feeding just for fun as I thought they don't NEED feeding?

Flow I have gyre's at each end of the tank and an Octo Pulse 2 at the rear behind the rockwork he is on. I tried turning up the flow to see if that would help but I made no changes around the time that he closed up. I could try lowering it a bit?

Light is 100-150 PAR I tried upping the light to see if that would help as I also read that BTA's want much higher light? But no change so far at closer to 200-220 PAR (I used a PAR Meter).

purple_jeep · Jan 16, 2024

I also started Carbon Dosing in that time frame but I don't recall it lining up?

Nano_Man · Jan 16, 2024

What are all your water parameters
U say carbon dosing too reduce nitrate or just added carbon

TX_REEF · Jan 16, 2024

I'm not aware of any direct effect of carbon dosing on nems, i suppose they could suffer if nitrates and phos bottom out. turning up light was a good call. You could try reducing flow a bit and see how it responds. Also you can try feeding, but i recommend smaller food like frozen mysis as large chunks of food can get them moody, especially if they already aren't too happy.

Sleeping Giant · Jan 16, 2024

bring up the salinity to .025 or .026. add flow towards it, don't feed for 2 days and give it a blast of frozen mysis after day 2. it might need to poop

purple_jeep · Jan 16, 2024

Nman said:
What are all your water parameters
U say carbon dosing too reduce nitrate or just added carbon

Water Parameters are in the first post, started Carbon Dosing to reduce Nitrates and Phosphates using Tropic Marin Elmin-NP and now switching to Bacto-Balance.

purple_jeep · Jan 16, 2024

TX_REEF said:
I'm not aware of any direct effect of carbon dosing on nems, i suppose they could suffer if nitrates and phos bottom out. turning up light was a good call. You could try reducing flow a bit and see how it responds. Also you can try feeding, but i recommend smaller food like frozen mysis as large chunks of food can get them moody, especially if they already aren't too happy.

Its tentacles are so short now that I am not sure how to feed it... I do feed mysis to the tank twice a day for the fish but do I need to spot feed him directly somehow?

Sleeping Giant · Jan 16, 2024

purple_jeep said:
Water Parameters are in the first post, started Carbon Dosing to reduce Nitrates and Phosphates using Tropic Marin Elmin-NP and now switching to Bacto-Balance.

carbon dosing might be causing it to close up too

purple_jeep · Jan 16, 2024

Sleeping Giant said:
bring up the salinity to .025 or .026. add flow towards it, don't feed for 2 days and give it a blast of frozen mysis after day 2. it might need to poop

Yeah I want to be at 1.025 so I'll replace my top off with salt water and bump it up slowly.

TX_REEF · Jan 16, 2024

purple_jeep said:
Its tentacles are so short now that I am not sure how to feed it... I do feed mysis to the tank twice a day for the fish but do I need to spot feed him directly somehow?

yes, use a syringe or turkey baster and shoot some directly into the tentacles neat the mouth. be prepared to shoo away fish and shrimp until the nem consumes the food.

Nano_Man · Jan 16, 2024

Yep I’ve done white vinegar dosing though it was plain but it said white malt and they didn’t like it closing up not happy Then I changed to 5% distilled white vinegar with no I’ll effect. Only asking about your water because if you’re mag in low in my tank they look a lot better when mag is brought up to normal levels

purple_jeep · Jan 16, 2024

Nman said:
Yep I’ve done white vinegar dosing though it was plain but it said white malt and they didn’t like it closing up not happy Then I changed to 5% distilled white vinegar with no I’ll effect. Only asking about your water because if you’re mag in low in my tank they look a lot better when mag is brought up to normal levels

I thought 1240 for Magnesium was ok?

Nano_Man · Jan 16, 2024

purple_jeep said:
I thought 1240 for Magnesium was ok?

Yep just checking
My mag is 1295 to 1300

Nano_Man · Jan 16, 2024

purple_jeep · Jan 16, 2024

I'll test again tonight and increase it if needed

I am dosing All for Reef.

I also sent of water for ICP so I should hear back on that soon

garygb · Jan 16, 2024

I would try to feed a small, pea size, piece of uncooked shrimp or a small piece of krill (I would peel it for now to make it easier to digest). I can't speak to dosing, as I never have, but I know some people report problems with dosing and anemones and others report no issues. I suppose it depends on the system.

Even though it doesn't look great, it doesn't look awful in the last pic. Gently placing a piece of food on the tentacles nearest the mouth and holding there for a minute will elicit a feeding response, if it's at all in the mood to eat. If you get no feeding response within a minute, I would try again the next day with a new fresh piece of food. Krill and shrimp (uncooked) are favorites of BTAs. They also like squid, clam, mussel, and I've never had issues with silversides, but some people report problems with bad batches of silversides, so I won't recommend those.

The parameters look ok, the only thing I ever keep track of is sg and temp. I keep my sg ~1.026-1.027 (35ppt on refractometer) . My temp is about 82F, but 77-83F should be fine.