Rbta dying? Please help

natas

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I know you guys prob get this question often but hey here is another one.

First some background. Got this rbta 2 weeks ago. He stayed out for a week then decided to move 5 days ago. He stayed put in the next spot for two days then my clowns noticed him and went at it. He seemed to do fine but kept moving. This morning I noticed he he went to the side of my tank. Didn't think much of it. Today I got home from work and see him in the current state.

A few observations. One he is in the sand and not attached to anything. Two the clowns apparently dug a whole where he is and he appears to have sand in his mouth. Not 100% sure if it is sand tho. Three his mouth is currently wide open. Forth it almost looks like he is splitting. This seems unlikely tho because he is not that large.

Anyway any help will be appreciated. I just don't want him to pollute the tank. That is my biggest concern.


Tank Params
Nitrate 0.75
Phosphate 0.03
Salinity 1.026
Ph 8.3
Alk 8.4
Temp 77

Tank is 1.5 yrs old and very stable.
 
Ok so the peppermint shrimp is now nipping at it...or feeding off of it. So I think its a goner :( So much money wasted. Cant figure out why it died tho. 2 weeks it looked great and my parameters are pretty much perfect.

I took it out and put it in a cup with some water from the tank and have that sitting in an area of the sump not exposed to the water but have the cup in the tank to regulate temp. I am going to let it sit for a few hours and see if it gets better.
 
How'd you acclimate it? Maybe it was never happy. They can die slowly, just like clams.
 
How old is your tank? I had the same problem with mine when i first started. It would move a lot because I had lighting issues being not bright enough and my tank was too new still. even though my parameters were spot on, my tank wasn't aged enough.
 
First question:

I drip acclimated him over 1.5 Hours...

Second Question:
My tank is roughly 1.5 years old

The lighting is plenty bright. I have two Hydra 52's over a 120 Gallon tank at about 30%.
 
From the pic. the color wasn't off. so Light wouldn't be the issue. First guess would be water param or light, but since you say it's not light, and you say water is perfect. Do you have your tank grounded? I hear electric current in the water could agitate certain critters. One last question. Is it your only Anemone? multiple anemone's in a tank release some chemical that could have caused it to move around a lot eventually killing it. Flow would not be an issue. I've had mine love to stay right in front of my powerhead. then i've had it stay in low flow areas. Did you feed it? feeding helps it stay put since it thinks that area is a good source for food.
 
Ok so let me answer the questions asked and also update you all.

First the tank has a good amount of flow. I got the return and two mp40wES's going at about 50%. The spots he wondered two the past few days were all pretty mid to low flow areas of the tank.

I never attempted to feed him. The day I was planning to move him was actually the day he decided to take a walk in the tank. Once he did this he put himself in a spot that basically made it impossible for me to feed him.

The clown's involved were both Maroon clowns. The male showed the most interest in him. He is pretty small and seems to be a perfect size for this size anemone. The female yesterday was showing interest in him, but it was really hard to tell because I could not really see what was going on because of where he was yesterday. They were both hanging out in the area. I do know that at night the male was snuggling up to it possible sleeping in it for the past week since he moved.

I just rechecked all my parameters and they are exactly the same as I posted.

The tank is not grounded, but I do have it all hooked up to a an Apex Lite (I run two EB8's).

Also he is the only Anemone in the tank.

Now for the update. He is still in the cup floating in the sump and still looks like crap. However, I moved the cup around and he is actually attached himself to the bottom
 
Yup. And stressed anemones can get an infection, waste away, and die.

The sad irony of the small anemone is that clowns can kill them. And often do.
 
Trying to make light of this all. I was sort of giggling after Melev and Squidmotron posted. My first thought after reading this was that we need a maroon clownfish abuse awareness group.
 
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