Re: LTA demise 2/11/10
Thanks for your quick response - much appreciated!
<Glad to assist you>
RE TESTING -
We also monitor Ph via a probe on our controller. Normally we are around 8.2. We do not regularly test Mg and HPO4 unless we are looking for causes for something observed, or numbers for KH and Ph aren't balanced.
<Mmm, I would be testing these if you intend/have Cnidarian livestock.
Calcium alone "wont' work" w/o Magnesium in proportion, and some soluble phosphate presence is absolutely necessary for this life>
RE FILTRATION -
We feed small particles heavily for our filter feeder inhabitants - including gorgonians.
Variety of Cyclop-eeze, Roto-feast, oyster feast, baby brine, etc. In addition to 20-30% water changes every 2 weeks, the addition of the denitrator has helped to keep nitrates in line under this regimen.
RE "IDEALLY" -
Sorry, my comment was that in regards to LTAs - or nems in general - where we ideally want them or think they will be content doesn't really mean anything... it's really up to the animal as to where they optimally find something they like - and that doesn't always mix with our ideals of where we want them or think they would be content.
RE CAUSES -
Acknowledging that these are high risk animals to start with, are there conditions or predators in my substrate that would have attributed to the damage we observed after being in our tank for a week?
<Doubtful, but a remote possibility>
Are there known items that prey or irritate the foot of these?
<There are indeed... various worms, crabs, some fish groups like Angels...>
We have a collection of snails, emerald crabs and hermit crabs for our CUC.
I read that some have experienced peppermint shrimp irritating LTA feed until they are securely settled and their food buried - but we don't have peppermint shrimp (we do have cleaner shrimp).
RE OTHER NEMS -
We have both a RBTA and now 2 GBTA in our system as well (the GBTA recently split).
<See WWM re Anemone compatibility. Not a good idea to mix>
The rose is happily anchored to a rock on the far left of our tank where the rock is taco shaped - open from end to end and closed on top. The rock is by itself slightly buried in the sand bed. The GBTA was initially placed in hole on a larger piece of rock that actually angels up to the back right corner of my tank. It initially moved to the back side out of the light, then came back forward a bit higher than the hole - and has stayed there since. There is a ledge there that its foot is on the underside of. When it split, it moved slightly just before splitting, the larger section has stayed where it was, and the smaller section has moved to the back side of that rock - where I expect it wanted a bit less light and more protection while it healed. Both of the GBTA are looking great - inflated, and took food last night.
OTHER INHABITANTS - If helpful, I can include an inventory of my stock - but we mainly have a collection of peaceful in habitants - intentionally. Thanks again for thoughts and comments - We are forever learning in this
hobby.
Jeanette
<Ah, good. BobF>
Re: LTA demise 2/12/10
Some follow up questions - still trying to learn on this one... :)
RE POSSIBLE PREY
You mentioned some worms, crabs, and fish (angels) may pray on the foot of a nem - can you be a bit more specific so that I can assess if we are aware of any of those being present in our system?
<This is posted/archived on WWM>
As I mentioned - we do have emerald crabs and hermit crabs.
<... these are possibilities>
We also have a female Bellus angel - but had understood that the Bellus isn't considered to be an aggressive angel and not prone to many of the negative traits of angels in a mixed reef.
<Usually the genus Genicanthus are not>
RE ANEMONE COMPATIBILITY
Could you help cover the specific risks to having mixed species in a common system?
<Again... please learn to/use the search tool, indices on WWM. We have a few tens of thousands of people use the site daily... it is NOT a question and answer bb, but a reference system to peruse>
In our research, I did read (and have had it quoted to me) - that you recommended big systems to consider mixed species (hundreds of gallons)
<Yes>
- and I had understood this was as much for physical separation, as it is for potential chemical warfare (although not as likely).
<Yes as well>
Although not the recommended combination, given some of the advancements in the hobby - if one were to have mixed species - what care or system considerations should be provided to optimize their safe care?
Thanks!
<... read here: http://wetwebmedia.com/cnidcompppt.htm
and the linked files above as they pertain to your livestock here. B>

Re: LTA demise -- 2/12/10
My continued appreciation -
<Welcome in turn>
RE http://wetwebmedia.com/cnidcompppt.htm
I actually had the opportunity to attend a presentation of this - I believe, the first time you had delivered this material. Very good material indeed - then as well as to keep available on WWM.
<Ahh! And yet you chose/choose to house multiple anemone species?>
It is important we understand the animals we keep - not as an afterthought, but as part of the responsible decision to even consider keeping them. With intent of keeping physical separation between nem species,
<Mmm, insufficient... the chemical aspect/s are often just as troublesome>
and running filtration to assist with chemical warfare, I know as with all life forms, we can't ultimately control behavior - but is a system sustainable with multiple species of nems?
<Doesn't appear so>
RE SEARCHING WWM -
You are very correct in that there are pages and pages of very good information to peruse - but I was unsuccessful in finding specifics to what I was trying to answer - either initially regarding the sequence of events and observations we had, as well as which tank inhabitants are known for preying on the LTA.
<Am wondering if you'd help me, us... how might the information be better ordered/organized? Perhaps some more in-depth instruction set on how to use the Google search tool?>
In this hobby - by nature of maintaining live systems - in reality, we can never be 100% confident in forecasting behavior or interactions - there are various stories (claims) of people that have systems with occupants that should interact with each other, but don't (or haven't yet), or inhabitants that aren't expected to, but do.
<Well-stated>
And after not finding specific via research - both on WWM, as well as various forums regarding the initial damage to the LTA- I did first post to focus forums on a couple of forums - it was suggested in a reply that I write you directly for specifics to my situation, versus generalities - to tap into the expertise you and your crew have.
<I see>
Although we hopefully have the best of intentions of the care of the animals we keep in this hobby, very few hobbyists truly maintain an environment true to a natural inhabitant. We can't duplicate the depth of water to truly mimic deeper water inhabitants - and yet we often find them in our tanks in shaded areas...and for some of what we setup, it is truly personal taste - whether by the choice of how we set up our rockscape, to the color sand we use, to the inhabitants. And it is by sharing what we do, what works, and what doesn't, that hopefully we continue to further the success in caring for the animals - and make a conscious decision not to pursue the ones we are not successful with.
WWM provides a great collection of various aspects of that - but the pure volume of information, the pure variety of issues, situations, and setups often lend itself to be a difficult to find a similar experience or post.
It's by far one of the greatest collections available, but as such, having folks respond to a post of "research WWM" often isn't direct enough to navigate to the specifics needed.
<Yes... but, please bear w/ me, I don't have any more resource to dedicate to this "proposition" on a daily basis... the few hours it takes is falling short I fear>
Even searching "LTA crab prey damage" doesn't readily surface information
<Mmm, I'd "back up" and substitute "Anemone" for "LTA", to make the search more general, applicable>
or experiences that give an example of a specific species of crab being confirmed to cause a specific issue with an LTA in a specific tank setup - in fact, it surfaces posts for Sebae nems being safe with emerald crabs. I did find one post that appears to have been the 2nd or 3rd in a series with a picture of a LTA nem with some damage on it's side - but never did find the original post/email with the discussion around what caused it or system information. I even tried searching on the title "LTA wound".
I truly appreciate the depth of information available on WWM - but it's not necessarily the easiest to navigate to find specifics, or find the complete information related to something you do find. And although there are wonderful pages of overview your team maintains (versus the emails that are posted) - because of the uniqueness of our systems, sometimes they aren't specific enough.
<The one "saving grace" statement I'll make is that this free tool IS getting better over time>
So, thank you for your time and sharing of your expertise - it's how we further the hobby and hopefully support a responsible approach to the selection and care of what we put in our tanks. I did not mean to mistake your expertise for a BB - but had not been able to locate the specifics via the organization of the information I was looking through.
Thanks again.
<Thank you, BobF>
Re: LTA demise -- 2/13/10
RE SEARCHING INFO
Bob - Happy to provide ideas. Because the emails on the site are organized into pages, versus threads or individual objects, when you search on a multiple word selection, it is treating the entire page as a positive hit - even though the individual words you are looking for do not appear together in any one email message contained on the entire page. As a hypothetical example, if you are looking for information on vitamin C dosing - entering the words vitamin, C and dosing in the search box may return multiple hits - but you may never find an email thread that contains all three words - but instead, you may find 10 posts with vitamin, 5 with C, 25 with dosing - and maybe a few with a combination of them on the same page, but not in the same email.
<Mmm, yes>
In contrast, if you use MS Outlook, or other client email application, when you do a multiple word search, you get email "hits" that contain all of the words - and not every email that contains one or the other - and you get the hits at the email level - not everything in your mailbox, or everything in the same folder.
I'm not sure of the logistics behind how you process and publish emails that come into the crew - or what other functionality/requirements you have around how you manage that process - but I would think considering a fully moderated forum tool - where nothing gets published until you as a moderator does so, might be a good compromise - as most of those tools are designed to allow searching to the post level - which is the granularity missing from WWM now, at least for multiple words in the search.
<There is a better search tool, process, located here:
http://wetwebmedia.com/Googlesearch.htm
and this is linked on each page... One can, most often should choose/elect to see/read the "cached version" which will highlight the search term or string if you're familiar with "listing" such terms in Boolean logic here.
Again, I don't know how much elaboration here to our users is prudent>
RE LTA
It does not appear that based on MUCH time perusing compatibility with the known CUC members in our tank that we have a known predator -
<Agreed>
but there is always the potential of an unknown predator...as we did start the system with live rock and live sand (but depending on what it was - we would think to have seen other issues in the tank related to it). Were the pictures provided, considered with the time in our tank (9 days), indicative of a negative interaction between mixed nem species?
<Not in my opinion, no. As I've tried to infer, hint from the get-go. I suspect the ongoing degradation is/was due to unseen initial damage>
Thanks - and let me know if you want to bounce other search ideas around....
<Thank you Jeanette. BobF>

Re: LTA demise 2/13/10
Bob - no need to reply to this one - just wanted to share my appreciation for you ongoing responses. It really makes a positive impact on the hobby when we continue to have folks that are willing and able to continue to foster the sharing of information and expertise.
<Jeanette. I greatly appreciate your... a person of intelligence, caring and resourcefulness, input>
We should all strive to continue to learn.
<Of a certainty agreed>
I also wanted to share related to searching WWM, that I am using the google link with local site search selected - so I'm improving my odds at finding what I'm looking for - but, the earlier point of getting hit results with a multi word search, even using Boolean logic, treats each page, which is often a collection of somewhat related, but very different email posts, as one object.
<Yes... Additionally I want to acknowledge SaraM's valiant effort, though one that "costs time", to add a "search for word" feature on the left shared border of all content pages>
It is helpful that search words are highlighted so that you can scan the page and look for the collection of words being in the same proximity of each other before you read the details of the email - but given how common some words are, this still takes some time.
<Yes... I look forward to the upcoming time when "PDA's" will be more like "His Dark Materials" "daemons"... pro-active, aware, and very helpful in guiding individuals>
And unfortunately, trying to use negative logic (i.e., excluding words from the results) also treats the entire page as an omission - so for example, if I wanted to look for vitamin C dosing, and I excluded calcium from the search string ("-calcium") it would omit any page that had calcium anywhere on the page - even if the one email post that included the entire search string I was looking for was on that page.
Thanks again - and happy valentines day!
<Ah yes... am cooking 80 qt.s of chili and serving it at the a half marathon. Perhaps I will meet someone special thus. Cheers, BobF>

Re Is My Purple LTA OK?/Macrodactyla doreensis/Health/Systems, now Cuke comp. 1/30/10
Well now I'm a bit worried about my cucumber... I will have to do some research on them as this is what the guy at my LFS said would be ok for cleaning my tank. He is a very little fella. Maybe 3 inches long... Anyway thank you so much for your help!
<You're welcome. James (Salty Dog)>
Dani

Re: LTA foot torn by Clarkii?... still not reading 7/25/09
Thanks for the prompt reply. As far as the bag it was either leave it in the main tank and risk losing other stuff or get it out -
<... this animal should not have been purchased in the first place... You have not shown evidence of "being ready" to take care of a large Actinarian species>
I got it out. I did have a friend call me back shortly after and had a spare running saltwater tank with no fish (their emergency tank) and they put it in there for me.
<... there is almost no likelihood of it reviving>
They lave the tank running 24/7 and make sure its parameters are pristine in that tank They emailed me last night that it started having stuff coming out of it's mouth. So unfortunately it did pass. Everything in our main tank is doing excellent though so I think I caught it in time.
Amanda Moore
<Going forward... please seek qualified input... ahead of purchasing livestock... BobF>

Re: LTA foot torn by Clarkii? 7/25/09
We received it from a friend that sold their tank and the person was turning it into a freshwater one. Unfortunately we don't know the full history on it - and it was free. It was either we took it or the person who took the tank would of probably thrown it away or dumped it in freshwater. Otherwise we would not have ended up with an anemone so quickly. I'd rather buy the fake ones from Foster & Smith and see if the clown plays in those before buying a real anemone personally. I know it'll be well over a year before we even consider buying one, and when we do it'll be through our LFS which are all saltwater guru's.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Amanda M.
<... please read where you were initially referred, don't write... The basal disc of the animal pictured was torn... through removal?... One of your pix shows it was put in with a Plerogyra sp... allelopathy?... Read.
B