Caring for sick BTA's

[Silfer]

Hi,

I had 3 healthy BTA's before I got whitespot. I used a reefsafe treatment to try help and although it didn't kill any inverts or anything the BTA's obviously didn't like it and went into hiding.

Now 6 weeks later 2 of the 3 have lost most colour, are small all the time and have 0 tentacle extension, infact they are extending about 2mm max it's horrible to see. The other one still has colour but is small/no extension like the others.

They spend most the time hiding in the rock but ocassionally come out.

I managed to feed 2 of them a small bit of silverside each but they couldn't hold onto it well, but with some patience finally they managed to get it down (had to fight off my cleaners, whereas before they were sticky and as soon as the cleaners tried to pinch food they'd realise how sticky the anemone was and hop away).

Anyway, what can I do for them? It's near impossible to get to them.

Cheers

[Anemone]

Sorry about the problems. The only thing you can do is continue to feed a small piece of meaty food (silversides and krill are my RBTA favorites) every couple of days. And yes, with as far gone as your anemones sound, you're going to have to hold the food against/near the anemones' mouths and let it swell outward and envelop the food. You may also have to either remove the shrimp or feed them heavily at the same time, as they will go "anemone diving" and rip food out of a sick BTA's mouth.

Feeding this way can bring your anemones back to self-sufficiency (ie, sticky tentacles) in a few weeks to a couple of months.

Good luck.

Kevin