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New Member
Ok, I'll admit I added a BTA to my one month old tank, but through some sort of luck, it managed to survive for the last 5 or 6 months. Recently though, my BTA shrunk down from it's 6" (open) normal size to a golfball-sized gob stuck to the bottom of a rock. I know they do this sometimes, so I left it alone for about a week and seriously never saw it open nor did it move it's foot. Even this didn't bother me much until I noted upon closer inspection that it's mouth was gaping, which has been the case for the last week at least, now. Plus, it seems to have this brownish... spongy? stuff inside it's body cavity, and seems to be expelling it in chunks once in a while. Not sure if it's the same material, but I did find a couple lumps of nasty looking brown stuff by it.
Question of course is: what did I do to it to anger the anemone gods? Or did it actually manage to catch a disease?
Tank params are thusly:
Tank gallonage: 90G plus 20G refugium (aka bristle worm factory)
SG: ~1.026
Ammonia:0
Nitrite:0
Nitrate:0 (0-160 test kit. Side note: who sells a good low-range?)
Lighting:
Anemone/corals half:1x 150W HQI plus 2x 65W bi-color actinics
"Big purple rock that all my fish live under" half: 2x 65W PCs (10K, actinic)
Temp:77F-81F
Tank uptime: ~6 months
Fish:
2x jawfish
2x diamond gobies (one is teeny weenie still)
Yellow Tang
Kole Tang
Algae Blenny
Arc-Eye Hawk
Maroon Clown (about 2-2 1/2")
Inverts!!
2x Pacific Cleaner Shrimp
Pistol Shrimp
Rock Anemone
?x Emerald Crabs (at least 4, less than 10)
2x Serpent Stars
Corals:
Flowerpot (Non-branching) stony
2x small colonies Xenia
small Galaxy stony
Things That Have Changed:
At the time anemone got sick, PH was barely 8.0 sometimes dropping to 7.8 Added Seachem "Reef Buffer" to raise to current level of 8.2-8.3, which seems to be stabilized now. dKH is around 8-9 at this time from the Buffer.
Temp fluctuations from AC failure: About 3 weeks ago the AC failed in the fish room (used to be the living room!) and my tank got up to about 83F during the afternoon, dropping to ~80F during the night. This has since been rectified.
Any additional information I can provide, please ask. Any help would be appreciated, since I'm not in the habit of killing my animals. Any special care for sick BTAs? Would it be good to plop it in a (well ventilated for water flow) container so it can't hide from the light all the time? It's still very well attached to it's rock at this point, so I'd rather not move it, but if I can help I'll do what I have to.
Question of course is: what did I do to it to anger the anemone gods? Or did it actually manage to catch a disease?
Tank params are thusly:
Tank gallonage: 90G plus 20G refugium (aka bristle worm factory)
SG: ~1.026
Ammonia:0
Nitrite:0
Nitrate:0 (0-160 test kit. Side note: who sells a good low-range?)
Lighting:
Anemone/corals half:1x 150W HQI plus 2x 65W bi-color actinics
"Big purple rock that all my fish live under" half: 2x 65W PCs (10K, actinic)
Temp:77F-81F
Tank uptime: ~6 months
Fish:
2x jawfish
2x diamond gobies (one is teeny weenie still)
Yellow Tang
Kole Tang
Algae Blenny
Arc-Eye Hawk
Maroon Clown (about 2-2 1/2")
Inverts!!
2x Pacific Cleaner Shrimp
Pistol Shrimp
Rock Anemone
?x Emerald Crabs (at least 4, less than 10)
2x Serpent Stars
Corals:
Flowerpot (Non-branching) stony
2x small colonies Xenia
small Galaxy stony
Things That Have Changed:
At the time anemone got sick, PH was barely 8.0 sometimes dropping to 7.8 Added Seachem "Reef Buffer" to raise to current level of 8.2-8.3, which seems to be stabilized now. dKH is around 8-9 at this time from the Buffer.
Temp fluctuations from AC failure: About 3 weeks ago the AC failed in the fish room (used to be the living room!) and my tank got up to about 83F during the afternoon, dropping to ~80F during the night. This has since been rectified.
Any additional information I can provide, please ask. Any help would be appreciated, since I'm not in the habit of killing my animals. Any special care for sick BTAs? Would it be good to plop it in a (well ventilated for water flow) container so it can't hide from the light all the time? It's still very well attached to it's rock at this point, so I'd rather not move it, but if I can help I'll do what I have to.
