It finally happened: rbta + pump

[rtelles]

Just wanted to share this story, because I made an idiot mistake that could have turned out much, much worse.

 

I've had my rbta for about a year and purchased him and his then recently split twin from a wamas tank breakdown. My clownfish took to the nems immediately and they've been hardy little guys, surviving all of my rookie mistakes including a massive spike in salinity that killed nearly all of my corals when my ato failed during a trip a few months ago (surprisingly enough, I didn't lose a single fish). The big guy ultimately split due to the shock, and all three nems were healthy when I stabilized my system. That said, three relatively large rbta's in a 40b was a bit much, so I sold one a few days ago and redid some of the rock work. Big mistake. I have a very small pump for my HOB refugium sitting in the corner of the tank under a small bit of egg crate, which has always been separate from any of the rock work to keep the nems away. When I reorganized the scape, I put a small piece of LR a few inches too close to the pump, and my angry anemone walked himself to the corner. I came home today to a slightly cloudy tank and only one visible nem. Sure enough, there was my once massive nem shriveled up and stuck to this little tiny corner pump, most of his color gone, and with bits of his tentacles floating in the 'fuge. 

 

The bad news: my refugium, which was crawling with various types of pods and baby and adult brine shrimp, seems to be devoid of the majority of that life, and the nem itself looked close to death, with nearly no color, and a wide open mouth. I nearly put the little guy out of his misery.

 

The good news: First, none of my fish or remaining corals have died. The pump goes directly into the refugium, which is immediately filtered through chemipure blue and some floss, so the nasty nem juice didn't get blasted directly into my main system. I did a quick 10% water change on the main system and then removed the 3-4 gallons of fuge water, cleaned out the pump, replaced the chemipure and fuge water, and added a small filter sock to the fuge return. I also set my skimmer to skim super wet. A few hours later and the water is relatively clear and the parameters have gotten better. I'll continue to do 10% water changes until everything's back to normal, but it looks like things will be okay (hopefully not a 'famous last words' situation).

 

Second, and more surprisingly, it looks like my nem may have a shot. I was about to remove him from the system, but upon closer inspection, although he was pretty beat up and lost a large number of tentacles, his foot, which is quite large, was intact. After removing him from the tank and brushing him to remove any remaining dead tentacles, I placed him on a shelf rock in the middle of the tank and turned the pumps off to see if he would attach, and within 10 minutes he had crawled his foot under the rock and exposed his remaining tentacles to the light. He started showing color again, so it looks like he didn't expel all of his zooxanthellae, and his mouth closed. A few hours later, at feeding time, I sprayed a miniscule bit of mysis onto his tentacles to see how he'd react, and he attacked them per usual. I know I'm not out of the woods and may ultimately lose him, but it looks like the little guy will live to fight another day. I'll watch him to see if he starts to deteriorate, but here's hoping.

 

As for the pump, aside from recreating the sand moat surrounding the pump, I wrapped a bit of the mesh from my screen around the egg crate to add another barrier and turned the pump intake so that it faces the glass (which I should have done in the first place, but I do stupid things sometimes). 

 

Final random observation: Once he had attached himself to the shelf rock, the remaining tentacles of the unfortunate rbta bubbled for the first time since the day I added him to the tank.  

Edited August 26, 2015 by rtelles

[tom39]

I had one try and commit pump suicide a few months back. 80% of its tentacles were torn off. Thought for sure it was a gonner but it hid for a few days hanging upside down under a rock before it started reaching out for the light. It didn't grow for a few months after that, but now it is huge and you could never tell it was chewed up in a pump.

IME, nems are fairly resilient. Just keep your water clean and it should have a good fighting chance to heal up.

Also you may want to think about adding iodine to your water. It was recommended by someone when this happened to me and I think it really helped.

 

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[DaveS]

This is how hobbyist figured out you could manually split them.  Someone's RBTA wen through a pump and out the other side came 2 nems that survived.

[rtelles]

Iodine was a good idea, didn't think of that in the frantic aftermath - will do so. The rbta's been hanging out under the shelf rock that I placed him under for a few days, and one of my clowns almost immediately rehosted and has been feeding the nem. He lost about 50% of his tentacles, and the ones that remain are pretty stumpy, but he's reaching for the light and is a deep red again, so it looks like we're past the worst of it. Starting to see some critters in my refugium again as well, so that's a plus. Lesson definitely learned. 

 

He had bubbled for about a day, but he's back to being a long-tentacled guy. I know nobody really understands the reason for bubbling, but I wonder if it has something to do with protection/defense. 

Edited August 28, 2015 by rtelles

[s2nhle]

Wow, great to see it recover well. Thank you for sharing.

[tom39]

Here is mine after a few months. (It's a cell pic, sorry for that.)

 

 

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[rtelles]

Yours looks good as new, Tom. I'll post a pic in a few weeks when mine's a bit more healed up, but he's already started to reach for the light in his new spot, which he seems comfortable in. He's not as blood red as his split, but he's coloring up again, luckily. Interestingly enough, his tentacle tips have a green hue to them now, especially those that were cut more than halfway. He's picking food up from the water column, and my clownfish had been more than happy to host him again. Parameters are all stable. Could have been much, much worse. Thanks for the suggestions and support.