BTA question

I bought a BTA about a month ago now. When I first got it had nice big bubbles on the tentacles, about a week after it didn't get the bubbles anymore. It seems happy moved once when I first got it and has been in the same spot since and seems to be getting bigger. I feed it freeze dried shrimp once every couple days. Any ideas on how to get the bubbles to come back? Thanks
The pics show when I first got it and now.

 

hi welcome to 3reef

whats your water quality like?
They are good indicators on water quality ,my gbta started to go all crappy thinned out tenatacles i found that my trace elements were lacking and lighting is also important imo ....

 

mx36 The bubble look in BTAs comes and goes and there is not any conclusive evidence on how to correct it. You can play around with the trace elements but there are so many variables that there is nothing concrete that one can recommend. Over time you'll notice that they'll come and go. HTH

 

+1

 

I noticed you said feed every couple of days. From what i've read, this is a way to get them to grow, but they wont be as pretty while doing so

I think most people feed weekly or every 5 days ? Correct me if im wrong

 

I never fed mine. Feeding them only encourages them to grow and subsequently split so if you don't mind them taking over your tank, go ahead and feed them as often as you'd like

 

Best thing you can do is just leave it alone don't go tossing in all kinds of elements and or iodine tweaking water if you have proper lighting and correct water parameters it will be fine just leave it along..Thats what I'd do.

I just inherited 6 smaller Rose and green BTA and they where looking bad And I was told to do this and do that the water needed this and the M/H lamps where to old and so on.. I took them from the M.H and put them in a 20 long with 2 URI VHO one 03 and a 50/50 actinic white and fed them one little dime size hunk of bait squid a week divided up among them.. Now they are double the size in less then 2 months .. Long story short they need about nothing really they are a sack of saltwater But in the last 8 weeks or so these have gone from about thew size of a Quarter 25.ct to almost a coffee cup in diameter.

 

what i meant by my earlier post is that feeding them every couple of days will keep them partially closed over themselves and almost "curled up" and shriveled while they digest their meals

Let me know if this is just hearsay ^^

 

I agree with all of the above. One thing that I did not see, however, has to do with the bubble tips. I remember this from a discussion we had a while back. I think we concluded that the lack of bubble tips does not mean an unhealthy anemone. The bubble tips just have to do with how water is distributed throughout the anemone.

 

When you feed the anemones, they may shrivel up a bit but it's nothing major. They will still spend more time "open" than "closed" unless you feed them constantly