Feeding RBTA

[salavelle]

I just introduced a RBTA to my 75 gal. mixed reef and need opinions on how often everyone feeds theirs. In the short week I have had it, I have been feeding it PE Mysis every other day. I purchased some small frozen uncooked shrimp at my local grocery yesterday and am wondering if I should feed bits of this periodically and whether or not it would be good to soak this shrimp in Selcon before feed it, or if I should just stay withe PE Mysis?

[sdc19982002]

I feed mine small pieces of silver sides, shrimp and krill about once a week.

[calbert0]

1 x per week feeding is fine for a RBTA. No need to feed daily.

[davocean]

I only spot feed my nems about once a month, a small piece of scallop, and they may pick up some mysis at fish feedings.
Good lighting is their main source of energy, you could actually not spot feed at all.

[JMartin104]

I've been spot feeding mine M W and F for the past 3 - 4 months. He's grown from about the size of a dime to a small orange. I feed him ground up shrimp and silversides.

[salavelle]

Sorry for my ignorance, but what is a M W and F??

[JMartin104]

Sorry for my ignorance, but what is a M W and F??

Monday, Wednesday and Friday

[jimrawr]

Ive had a RBTA for about 8 months or so, started as one and split twice already. Havent fed it ever. They are health and big so I dont see a reason to feed it. I may be wrong in this as I am not a RBTA expert, but in my experience they can be healthy without feedings

[windyridge]

To feed or not to feed is an often asked question. You'll hear yes, no and everything in between if you do a search. Some feed, some don't and some feed here and there. If you have clowns living in it, they will feed it a morsel of whatever they are eating at most meals. Food drifts over to it from regular fish feeds. Some say they grow faster if target fed. Personally I feed it when I remember, and give it a silverside. I am not worried as my clowns feed it. For me, feeding it a silverside tends to bring the bubble tips on. I see my clowns bring it seaweed which it appears to eat. I have fed it shrimp, chopped up into bite size chunks when I don't have SS on hand. It got huge, a foot across and then split.

[JMartin104]

Ive had a RBTA for about 8 months or so, started as one and split twice already. Havent fed it ever. They are health and big so I dont see a reason to feed it. I may be wrong in this as I am not a RBTA expert, but in my experience they can be healthy without feedings

When I got mine, he was about the size of a dime. I never fed him and for about 8 months, he remained the size of a dime. He did not start growing until I started to spot-feed. I think if your tank has plenty of "food", spot feeding might not be necessary.

[davocean]

Small feedings like mysis can be very beneficial in helping a bleached or damaged nem recover better/faster.
FWIW My Sebae(crispa) and LTA(doreensis) were never spot fed at all the first year and a half I had them(Years before I joined this site, never even heard of spot feeding them at the time) and they became huge.
I did have a pair of Clarki's that did push food in, but don't expect all clowns to do that, some are better at that than others.
I do notice colors seem slightly brighter after a feeding, but very slight.
I know some people purposely do not spot feed as a means to slow down their outgrowing the tank.
Good lighting and stable params are key to health of host nems.

[Reef264]

A whole silver Side once a week, but you may need to try pieces of them.

[salavelle]

I do have a Gold Stripe Maroon clown that it hosted within two hours of putting the Anemone in the tank, but have not witnessed it feeding it. Do any of you that said you never feed your RBTA, have an Anemone that may be feeding it?

[davocean]

I no longer feed silversides since I and a few other exp nem keepers had bad experiences w/ them.
IMO scallops or raw shrimp, krill, mysis, are much safer options.

[Reef264]

I no longer feed silversides since I and a few other exp nem keepers had bad experiences w/ them.
IMO scallops or raw shrimp, krill, mysis, are much safer options.

Thanks for the heads up!I will feed krill to it instead of Silversides, I tried scallops, it spit them out.After "Swallowing" them.

[jrp1588]

I have a GBTA that I don't feed ever. It started as 1 cookie sized nem and has grown into 3 saucer sized nems. If it splits any more I'm going to sell the excess ones. I do have a pair of clarkiis that may be feeding it though.

[supervdl]

I have several rbta and I feed them only occasionally because I can't necessarily reach them all. My experience is they don't require food but if you don't feed them they move around a lot more.

[strout]

When I had mine in the tank, I would feed it a small piece of shrimp every other day. Well what I did was feed the clown fish, she would feed the nem. The nem grew big, fat and happy.

[JMartin104]

I had two nems in the tank but my clowns preferred to host in a leather - sigh.

[windyridge]

What bad experiences davocean?

[davocean]

What bad experiences davocean?

I had read of other exp nem keepers having nem deaths after feeding silversides, and I didn't really believe it since I had been feeding them regularly to my huge Crispa and Doreensis for years w/out issues.
Then in my nem specific tank I had 3 LTA's just shrivel up, detach, and melt right after feeding them silvers, gone w/in 24 hours of feeding, no other changes to tank or anything.
I'm not sure why exactly, but since others had that same outcome I just decided to stick w/ what has been safe, scallops and raw shrimp, mysis.
My Malu sucks down scallops very quickly, that is mainly what it gets spot fed.

[salavelle]

Where do you purchase your scallops davocean. Are they something you get from a grocery, or special order? Anything special I should look for?

[davocean]

I just get scallops from the grocery store, some for my dinner, one for nemy!LOL
Mmm, I think nemy is craving a spot feeding...

[salavelle]

Scallops do sound good about now. I guess I could share some with my nemy. LOL

[SimplyReefer]

I have never fed mine and its doing great. it certainly wouldn't hurt to feel it tho.

[salavelle]

I think I will try to cut back the feeding to maybe once a week and see how that goes, and if I see my neme feeding it, I may cut back to even less often.

[gixxerman]

I feed my RBTA's about once a month. Either raw shrimp or mysis shrimp. I started with one and now have over 20. Been selling them off.... :thumbsup:

[salavelle]

That's one way of paying for this expensive hobby. I hope to be able to do the same one day and then buy more stuff. LOL

[salavelle]

I am sure you don't have all of them in the same tank, or is it a big tank?

[gixxerman]

Yup all in one tank. 90gal. and their all on one side... That's why I started to sell some off...:p

http://reefcentral.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=2444&pictureid=35698

[salavelle]

Beautiful sight, thanks for the picture. Those things must be reproducing like rabbits. Are those all from the one you started with. How long have you had the original? How often have they been splitting? I am also envious of how clean your tank looks.

[bugs713]

Totally awesome picture, I love it!!

I feed once a week, raw shrimp chunks and silver sliders and heis doing great. As mentioned earlier, when I started feeding him, he stopped moving around and settled in to a high flow, high light spot just below a covered MP40.
I've read the same things about silver sliders and will probably stop just in case. Mine spit out krill...

QUESTION: Do you guys peel the raw shrimp before feeding? I currently do.

[gixxerman]

Beautiful sight, thanks for the picture. Those things must be reproducing like rabbits. Are those all from the one you started with. How long have you had the original? How often have they been splitting? I am also envious of how clean your tank looks.

Thanks, Yes all started from one anemone. It's prob. been about 2 and half years. Not sure on the splittng, sometimes I see them and sometimes I could tell they split cause their all shriveled up in the rocks.

Bugs: Thanks, and I also peel my shrimp...

[JMartin104]

I do not peel the shrimp. But then, I take my shrimp and silversides and put them in the blender. I find that anything the nem does not eat is small enough to settle to the bottom to feed others. They certainly wouldn't peel them in the wild :lol2: