Are live rock hitchhikers making making life miserable for bubble tip anemones?

[LeonThePeon]

After a couple weeks of fighting ich in my DT - I removed the fishes to treat separately and the DT has been fallow for about a week. I've got two BTAs, a cleaner shrimp (scarlet), 3 conchs, and a nassarius snail still in the DT.

Before the ich hit - they were looking pretty good:

But getting into the ich treatment in the display tank (Ruby Reef Rally and Kick Ich) - they started to not look too happy (particularly the bigger one):

I've done some water changes, got the protein skimmer back online, UV filter started - hoping water quality gets better. Tested water:

But still not looking hot:

(Note - I had to do redo some aquascaping to get the fishes out - had to turn rock around - big BTA is on the left now)


Can't figure it out - but last night - I happened to see some things moving around on the live rock. It was a bristle worm that was pulling around a piece of shrimp that I had fed the BTA earlier that night. I took a red flashlight out and it was a crazy city of hitchikers on that live rock! Bristle worms; copepods; amphipods; medusa worms; stomatellids; and probably more.

Could all those be upsetting my BTAs?

 

[LeonThePeon]

By the way - the bigger one has been looking like that for about 2-3 weeks straight now. Hasn't inflated back fully at all. I see it stretch out every now and then, but tips stay striveled up.

 

[Tahoe61]

The have stubby tentacles which makes me inclined to think starvation. What lighting type please.

 

[LeonThePeon]

The have stubby tentacles which makes me inclined to think starvation. What lighting type please.

Two AI HD Primes about 15" above them. They were closer but they had moved themselves down to that level.

 

[Frop]

Could the ich treatments have copper? Copper is a lot harder on corals than fish they say.

You should just leave the DT fishless and not treat it for ich. Just treat the QT and starve the ich out in the DT imo

 

[LeonThePeon]

Could the ich treatments have copper? Copper is a lot harder on corals than fish they say.

You should just leave the DT fishless and not treat it for ich. Just treat the QT and starve the ich out in the DT imo

Ruby Reef advertises (both) Kick Ich and Rally are Reef safe. I've stopped treating in the DT for a little over a week now since I was able to get the fishes into a QT.

But they have not improved.

 

[Tahoe61]

Could the ich treatments have copper? Copper is a lot harder on corals than fish they say.

You should just leave the DT fishless and not treat it for ich. Just treat the QT and starve the ich out in the DT imo

You're right there maybe a correlation to the use of these products. RALLY is copper free, and Kick Ich is also copper free.

http://www.rubyreef.net/kick-ich/

With that said the company's product description of ingredients " KICK-ICH™ contains precisely blended reagents, of certified pharmaceutical purity, whose specific methods of action have been identified and confirmed in research and clinical laboratories around the world."

^ That's a lot of words that say absolutely nothing about the product.

Only interventions for the anemones that occur to me are smaller water changes, use of new charcoal and attempting to target feed if you are not already doing so.

 

[Frop]

With that said the company's product description of ingredients " KICK-ICH™ contains precisely blended reagents, of certified pharmaceutical purity, whose specific methods of action have been identified and confirmed in research and clinical laboratories around the world."

^ That's a lot of words that say absolutely nothing about the product.

Haha I know right...

 

[LeonThePeon]

Only interventions for the anemones that occur to me are smaller water changes, use of new charcoal and attempting to target feed if you are not already doing so.

How much would you target feed? I've been cutting up some shrimp from the grocery - but have only fed maybe 1/10 of the shrimp each. Doesn't seem like very much but also don't want it rotting inside them.

Just saw my cleaner shrimp try to take a piece that was already halfway in one of the anemone's mouth! Greedy *******!