How long it takes for BTA to color up

[merfury1989]

So I had this beautiful anemone and it lost its color and shrinked to 4 times down its original size. I have no idea what caused its demise, yet no other corals were affected.

I put that small little blob into the bowl and tried nurture it to health. It's been 25 days now, I feed it every other day, with mixture of mysis, squid, bloodworm, clam, etc.

My question is how long it takes for the anemone to get its Zoonthele back and color up, does it every get it back?

Par its recieving is around 150-170
Flow is low (as with higher flow, it never opened).

During the 25 days, once it crawled outside the bowl, and went to real low light (50par) and no flow area, I let it be, however, it turned to blob again and just lay dead (not attached to the rock), so I put it back to its original bowl

Rest of the parameters as per icp testing are been consistent for 25 days now

Alk 8
Cal 430-450
Mag 1380-1400
Nitrate 15-20
Phos 0.05-0.09
Salinity 35

 

[Nano_Man]

Not a good sign when it can not attach itself any more but you will just have to keep an eye on it and see how it goes. When or if it gets back to health so will the colour. Good luck going forward . How old is your reef?

 

[merfury1989]

Not a good sign when it can not attach itself any more but you will just have to keep an eye on it and see how it goes. When or if it gets back to health so will the colour. Good luck going forward . How old is your reef?

Oh it is sticking fine and responding to food, but when its inside bowl. One day it just randomly thought all is good and ventured out and decided to die (or atleast I thought)

Apart from this. I have:

3 Torches (candy, dragon, 24k)
1 elegance
1 hammer
4-5 types of rare zoas
1 toadstool
3 rock flower anemone
1 mini maxi anemone
2 mushroom

All are doing great and growing.

 

[Nano_Man]

Or well if he is footing that’s a good sign
Just keep an eye on it.

 

[merfury1989]

When do I know for sure it's dead and needs to be removed?

 

[Nano_Man]

Not holding on anymore. When you smell your tank water it’s smells like death als it bit’s falling off it but really at this point you should have removed it . Bta are hardy so just see how things go it could bounce back. Open mouth for long periods is another sign it not well. Hope this helps
@OrionN is very knowledgeable on all anemone's

 

[Dbichler]

I would start by not feeding it you could just be making it worse. I see in the picture the anemone is hosting at least one clown. Clowns can irritate anemones at times and make them deflate. You know it’s dead when they turn to a white/grey mush. I’ve never had an anemone die and foul a tank so I don’t personally believe that you must take it out before this stage. We also should know what lighting you have, flow and age of system days since rock got wet. I’m also a firm believer that corals are easier than anemones so having thriving corals isn’t indicative of a mature enough system. People put corals in within a week and have success something like 60% of the time. You do this with anemones and it’s may 5%. These are just guesses but what seems close.

 

[merfury1989]

I would start by not feeding it you could just be making it worse. I see in the picture the anemone is hosting at least one clown. Clowns can irritate anemones at times and make them deflate. You know it’s dead when they turn to a white/grey mush. I’ve never had an anemone die and foul a tank so I don’t personally believe that you must take it out before this stage. We also should know what lighting you have, flow and age of system days since rock got wet. I’m also a firm believer that corals are easier than anemones so having thriving corals isn’t indicative of a mature enough system. People put corals in within a week and have success something like 60% of the time. You do this with anemones and it’s may 5%. These are just guesses but what seems close.

My system is roughly 2.5yr old

Lights I use from Red sea (Reefled 90 × 2), they are turned down to 35% red sea blue and 2% white

So you say u should not feed it, how it's going to feed itself when it has almost zero zoonthele left.

 

[Cell]

Months/years.

 

[OrionN]

Months/years.

It does not look like your anemone is bleached. Clear closer picture under white light is needed to tell for sure, but in person is often best to tell since color in picture is so easily change, even if not on purpose. Even monitor setting can cause us to come up with a different conclusion.
If it is completely bleach and if everything else is fine, and it is otherwise healthy, it won't color back until it got some zooxanthellae from somewhere. You can do a Zooxanthellae transplant and it will start to come back in about 2 weeks. I wrote an article on Zooxanthallae transplant at ReefCentral about 10 years ago. I will see if I will repost it here when I have a little time.

Your anemone should be feed every few days if it does not deflate and regurgitates the food. BTA does not like high current and high light. You just need to make sure the condition it is in is optimal. With feeding and good condition anemone can grow very fast.

 

[Dbichler]

My system is roughly 2.5yr old

Lights I use from Red sea (Reefled 90 × 2), they are turned down to 35% red sea blue and 2% white

So you say u should not feed it, how it's going to feed itself when it has almost zero zoonthele left.

As @OrionN said it looks like it has zoox still as the color is still there in picture. The mouth also looks slightly open is why I said don’t feed it. Should have clarified to not stop completely. I would personally wait a week and see what happens before feeding again. Sometimes when anemones eat they poop it out and deflate and mouth stays open slightly for a while. Your lights are fine so technically it shouldn’t need to be fed as the lights are what feed it although other foods do help them grow faster. Orion is an expert on anemones and trust what he says. I’m experienced just not an expert.

 

[merfury1989]

It does not look like your anemone is bleached. Clear closer picture under white light is needed to tell for sure, but in person is often best to tell since color in picture is so easily change, even if not on purpose. Even monitor setting can cause us to come up with a different conclusion.
If it is completely bleach and if everything else is fine, and it is otherwise healthy, it won't color back until it got some zooxanthellae from somewhere. You can do a Zooxanthellae transplant and it will start to come back in about 2 weeks. I wrote an article on Zooxanthallae transplant at ReefCentral about 10 years ago. I will see if I will repost it here when I have a little time.

Your anemone should be feed every few days if it does not deflate and regurgitates the food. BTA does not like high current and high light. You just need to make sure the condition it is in is optimal. With feeding and good condition anemone can grow very fast.

When you say BTA don't like high light

Would you consider 140-160 as good range?



Flow is kinda low, low enough where torch corals just wave around gently.



Also I feed it every other day, is this OK? It accepts food, and that's how initially got it back to this as per picture. Before this is was shrunked up and lost most of its tentacles.

 

[OrionN]

When you say BTA don't like high light

Would you consider 140-160 as good range?



Flow is kinda low, low enough where torch corals just wave around gently.



Also I feed it every other day, is this OK? It accepts food, and that's how initially got it back to this as per picture. Before this is was shrunked up and lost most of its tentacles.

Yes. Mid range for LPS is fine. Not a lot of current either.

 

[OrionN]

Feeding sick infected anemones will make them worst. I guess the nutrient in the interior will fuel bacterial growth, and the sick anemone likely cannot digest the food and will not get be if it from the food.
Often if you feed sick anemone they deflate and regurgitate the food. Don’t feed in this situation.

 

[merfury1989]

Feeding sick infected anemones will make them worst. I guess the nutrient in the interior will fuel bacterial growth, and the sick anemone likely cannot digest the food and will not get be if it from the food.
Often if you feed sick anemone they deflate and regurgitate the food. Don’t feed in this situation.

So only when it deflates and let food out right? Currently mine one doesn't do that, it wraps up and consumes whole, and after like 6hr or so deflates and let out black string like substance, and after 2h or so inflates back to size as per picture.