Death by RBTA...

7

737mech

I can't believe what I just saw going on in my tank. One of my very favorite fish my coral beauty is head first in the mouth of one of my RBTA.
It must have been in there awhile from the looks of things. I'm pissed just thinking about it. That coral beauty is huge compared to the RBTA.
I don't think it can eat all of the fish.
And to think I saved this anenome from diving thru one of my overflows. :evil:

Should I pull the fish out before it ruins my water?
 
IMHO, at this point, unless you see the anemone expel the fish, I'd let it do what it's gonna do with it, which is most likely digest it. Pulling it out could damage the anemone (Which, I realize you wouldn't shed any tears about that at this point, but it'd still be a bad thing. The 'nem was just doing what it's programmed to do).

You'd be suprised at just how much an anemone can expand to consume something. Sorry it had to happen this way...

(Sorry if this sounds preachy, not meant to be, but this is one of the reasons my anemone's are in their own tank.)
 
OK I've pulled the anenome's expensive lunch/dinner out. That wasn't much fun :sad:


Here's some photos. I just took this one yesterday :roll:

daybefore.jpg
alt="">


Here's tonight :x I've had this fish for a long time now. It would have been 2 yrs this fall

expensivedinner.jpg
alt="">
 
No that's not ich. I knew that would come up if I posted that shot. The fish was in perfect health (see shot above with caption) prior to ending up dead in that anenome.
 
The fish did appear fine in the other pic, but I have to wonder if there was something wrong that wasn't apparent by watching it. My coral beauty won't go anywhere near my BTA's and he's been living with them for almost 2.5 years now. Granted, my clown gets extremely mad at any fish that gets too close to a BTA..maybe that's what's kept the Coral Beauty out.

At any rate, I'm sorry for your loss. I just found the cleaner shrimp I've had for over 2 years dead on the sand this morning. :sad:
 
Hey George, sorry to hear about your loss. I know my gbtas had some expensive snacks over the years including a couple of coral gobies and a flatworm eating blue velvet nudibranch. And then I lost my last bta when my tank crashed. Any chance you have a rose bta to sell or trade? My clowns have been freaking out since their host died.
 
Hey Chris,

If I can persuade one of them off the rock I'll sell it to ya. Knowing me, this might take a while :) I'll be sure to contact you first!
 
I noticed that the tail fin looks really ragged like something has been picking at it. I wonder if the fish died and just drifted to the RBTA and got caught. My RBTAs have never killed a fish and I have seen several of my fish hit the tentacles on numerous occasions. It doesn't seem to phase them in the slightest. I don't think mine (MUCH larger than yours) could actually catch a healthy fish. My fish actually pick bits of food off the tentacles and steal it at feeding time.
 
I shot those photos about 24 hrs between them. I have a bunch of blue leg hermits that were crawling from the rock onto the fish and eating away. I had knocked them off before I took the 2nd shot.
Trust me this was a healthy fish in every sense other than it was stupid and got too close to a very hungry anenome.
 
I know this happened a while ago, but recently I was considering an RBTA. Now, after reading this, I think I will refrain from getting one. It is too bad, they look really cool.
-Chuck
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top