BTA rescue neglected or not?

AquaForge

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I rescued a tank this weekend that is 4 years old. The previous owner probably checked out of the hobby a while ago. The tank was full of GHA and he has 3 black widow BTAs. Inside I found one that was attached to the underside of the return nozzle. It was completely flat and blowing around like crazy. Two more were in amongst the rocks. Once I got it home and all setup I moved the one off of the return nozzle because I had to remove a ton of coraline algea that was crusitng over it causing the pressure to be super high.

My main tank I have a rainbow BTA and hes been eating small jumbo shrimp cubes weekly like a champ. Once I had the one in my main tank and gave it a day to puff up I went to feed it and it seems like it has no idea what to do. I tried with the other ones, same thing. They wont eat anything. I event tried direct feeding them some mysis, nothing. I then asked the guy what he fed them and how often, he said he never directly fed them. He only sprinkled some pellets into the tank 2x a day thats it.

So, can I train them to eat shrimp? Bigger question: How can anemones live 4 years with no food???? No clowns ever hosted in them and they are super small about the size of a soda can top.
 

ISpeakForTheSeas

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So, can I train them to eat shrimp? Bigger question: How can anemones live 4 years with no food???? No clowns ever hosted in them and they are super small about the size of a soda can top.
You can keep trying to feed them (possibly starting with small pieces and building up), but (and this is the answer to tour bigger question) BTA's are photosynthetic- they don't need to eat because they basically feed on light via their zooxanthellae.
 
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AquaForge

AquaForge

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You can keep trying to feed them (possibly starting with small pieces and building up), but (and this is the answer to tour bigger question) BTA's are photosynthetic- they don't need to eat because they basically feed on light via their zooxanthellae.
Oh! I thought they were non-photosynthetic. Learn something new :) Thanks
 

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