Help with my LTA

d12monkey

d12monkey

Member
Help!! I bought an anemone from my LFS about 1 1/2 weeks ago and I've been having a terrible experience with him. First he was in my 29 gal which has been up for about 8 months now, I have another LTA in the 29 which is doing marvelous. I had it in there for prob 3 days, and it started acting weird. I moved him to my 55 gal tank that I've had up for 3 weeks but has been running for well over a year now. And it's still doing the same thing. But now it's starting to loose it's stickyness and is not able to ingest food. I've been able to feed it by placing food on it's mouth for a few moments and then it'll eat it. But today it didn't want to. I've been feeding a piece of shrimp or snook fillet (didn't have any other fish to feed and wasn't going out to the market for some when I have). At first it's mouth would stay open just a little but in the last few days it's gotten wider. Here's a picture I just took of it. It's seems I can't get it to post on here. So here's a link.
 
viper_930

viper_930

Active Member
The anemone is very bleached. What kind of lighting and how many watts do you have on your 29 gallon and your 55?
 
d12monkey

d12monkey

Member
On the 55 gal I have a single HO 10000 k bulb, It's in the process of being upgraded. The 29 gal I have 550 watts of lights, 250w 13000 K Metal halide and 300 actinic .03 VHO.
 
viper_930

viper_930

Active Member
I think you should move the LTA back to the 29 gallon. It will have a better chance of regaining its zooxanthelae with more lighting.
 
d12monkey

d12monkey

Member
moved it back today in the morning. But I'm concerned that it doesn't want to move the food into it's mouth. I have to put the food half way into the mouth for it to eat it. I feed it a shrimp today, and that was the only way it would eat it.
 
d12monkey

d12monkey

Member

Originally posted by Jimlssc24
Well at least he is eating. When my carpet died he stoped eating.
:)
:thinking: Yea only cause I'm sorta force feeding. Putting the food mostly inside it's opened mouth. Hopefully it'll recover.:yes:
 
J

jacob_poly

Guest
very bleached....shows by the color and translucent tentacles....I havent seen too many LTAs but I dont think I have seen one that bleached. He should stand a better chance in your 29 G tank....provided the water params are right....hopefully there are rocks in there just in case he feels that the light is overwhelming....Hopefully you dont have any corals in that tank and are not dosing it with too many chemicals...I have had problems with those. Dont try and feed him too much...also dont force feed him. Overfeeding can quickly pollute your tank making matters worse. Has the aneome shown any signs of wanting to bury its base into the gravel? Are its tentacles responsive to touch? IMO, monitor it for a few days and if you see its tentacles really flared up try feeding it a little bit. It took a long time for my LTA to start to eat .... almost like 2-3 weeks. Initially it would toy with the food and then let go....finally it started to work the food to its mouth...would take 30 minutes or so the first few times...takes less than 10 minutes now.
An unrecommended test for your water params is to change like 3-4 % of your water and see if the LTAs starts doing better in the next 12 hours or so. I did notice this with mine initially. He looked a lot better with a water change. And so it gave me an idea that something was wrong with the water and I took care of that. After that hes always been looking great. Also be aware that an LTA sometimes likes to balloon up and float ... so keep all the powerheads with sponge prefilters to save them.
Good Luck and keep us posted....
 
d12monkey

d12monkey

Member
I will keep you guys posted. So far nothing. I did a 30% water change the same day I put him back cause I'm having a little bit of red algae slime problem, I think it's because there might be some potasium in my water, using a 3 canister filter but not an RO or RO/DI filter. I'm dosing with kalk but that's about it. I have another LTA in the same aquarium and it's been doing fine. :thinking: Not to worried anymore cause one of my true perculas adopted the anemone. Guess it didn't like getting kicked out of the other one. :notsure: I thought I heard that in order for a clownfish to adopt an anemone it has to be fairly healthy, or is that hearsay? I have enclosed an updated picture of it. But it will not post? Wonder why it's a jpg.
 
d12monkey

d12monkey

Member
Also here's a full tank picture for you guys to see. Notice that on the left side propagating Star polyps the slow way.
 
d12monkey

d12monkey

Member
LOL looks like I finally have been able to post a picture up. :cheer: How come no one told me that they couldn't be larger than 500 x 500 pixels?
Here you guys go so you don't have to follow the link. Keep in mind that now it's under 250w 13000 K Metal Halide and 4 super actinic VHOs.
 
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