Help getting a Purple LTA to stop moving.

[Adam]

I've had this 4 to 5" LTA in my tank for three and a half weeks. In that time it has only stayed in one spot for a max of 5 days, it's moved about 6 times. During this time it's had a couple run ins with the powerheads but there hasn't been much damage other that the 1st time, which it has recovered from. It has also not lost any of its color and for the most part looks none the worse for wear. I didn't feed it for the 1st 3 days and then gave it a few mysis soaked in Selcon which it eagerly accepted. From this point on I've fed it every couple days, unless it's moved, then I wait till a day after it's reset. I've fed everything from a few mysis to small pieces of fresh fish or shrimp. When I say small I mean rice to pea sized. I'm also sure it gets the occasional bits from fish feeding times.

Here's the info on my system that's been running since 6/1.
DT 220, sump 90 for a total of 250 gallons after rock and substrate.
Substrate: Arag-Alive Special Grade
Powerheads: 2 Neptune WAV's
Lighting: 3 SB Reef sBox Basic's 10" above the water
2 Kessel A160WE 1-2" above the water
2 LET 60" 80w T5 front and rear (4 bulbs total) 8" above the water

Livestock:
1 Engineer Goby
1 Watchman Goby
3 Benggai Cardinals
2 Golden Nugget Clowns
1 Kole Tang
1 Blue Throat Trigger
1 Purple Queen Anthia
2 Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
2 Blood Shrimp
1 Sandsifting Star
2 Long Spine Urchins
1 Pincushion Urchin
Several Emerad Crabs
Lots of various snails and hermit crabs.

Corals: Not much yet.
2 Torches
1 Finger Leather
1 Yellow Mille (Encrusting nicely)
1 Mushroom

Water:
Salt: Reef Crystals
Salinity: 35ppm, (Refractometer)
Ammonia: 0 (Red Sea)
Nitrite: 0 (Red Sea)
Nitrate: 3 (Red Sea Pro)
Phosphate: .01~.02 (Hanna ULR)
Ph: 8.0~8.11 (Apex, just re-calibrated)
Alk: 9.35 (Hanna) 8.8 (Red Sea Pro)
Cal: 425 (Hanna) 380 (Red Sea Pro) ??? Raised by 12.5 after last test
Mag: 1440 (Red Sea Pro)

Every time it moves I let it go on its own for 8 and up to 24 hours. It never seats it's foot unless I make a hole in the sand down to the glass, which I make at least 3" deep usually closer to 5". When it moved yesterday, after 4 days, it got sucked against a protected powerhead. It was likely there for an hour or 2 before my wife alerted me to it and I shut both down. When I got home I saw no sings of visible damage. Since then it has not set it's foot at all. On my way home last night I picked up a bag of Bahamas Oolite Arag-Alive sand to see if the would be better for it. I made a couple holes in the sand and let it see where it ended up. This morning it was against a rock that has an overhang as it started to look like it was attaching. When I fed the tank I made sure a few mysis landed on it and it ate them. After it opened back up I poured the sand down around it through a pvc pipe so the hole got filled in gently. Within 2 hours it was out and about again.

I'm getting to my wits end and am running out of ideas. I was hoping that it would find it's happy spot before I started adding more coral. It is a beautiful anemone and I'd sure like to do my best to keep it but I'm not going to let my wants overshadow the health of it. I'm thinking if I can't get it to seat soon I'll either have to sell it or take it to a LFS to give it a chance somewhere else. If it starts loosing color I'll move it as fast as I can. Is there anything I'm doing wrong or haven't tried that I should? Any help would be much appreciated!

I'll add a couple pics shortly.

 

[hzheng33]

adam, it's the nature of the beast. I doubt you can do much to make it settle down a hit. you can try to adjust the water movement

 

[schwaggs]

Sorry, I can't be much help, I've never had any luck settling down anemones. I had one that would roam around the tank about one month a year and settle back in the same spot each time and stay in that spot for 11 months then start all over.

 

[porpoiseaquatics]

It's said that they will move until they find the spot that is ideal to them. That could be any combination of parameters such as light, flow, food availability or even substrate. I notice that you said you keep it to the sand bottom. Why? None of mine have ever settled in the sand but instead have all chosen crevices or holes in rocks. My last 4 BTAs did not move once they settled in. These last two have been in the same place for a year or more.

 

[Adam]

porpoiseaquatics;1099365 wrote: It's said that they will move until they find the spot that is ideal to them. That could be any combination of parameters such as light, flow, food availability or even substrate. I notice that you said you keep it to the sand bottom. Why? None of mine have ever settled in the sand but instead have all chosen crevices or holes in rocks. My last 4 BTAs did not move once they settled in. These last two have been in the same place for a year or more.

This is an LTA, Macrodactyla doreensis, and they don't attach to rocks above the sand. They attach to the glass or something under the sand. They like finer sand or muck that is 3-5" deep.

 

[Adam]

Here's a FTS right after I got it.

alt="" />

And a few more close ups.

alt="" />

alt="" />

alt="" />

 

[FutureInterest]

That's a nice looking LTA!

From what you've noted, and the look of that nem being not fully extended in any of the pics... I'm going to recommend that you cut your lights by half for a few days and then slowly ramp them back up. Nems will move for a lot of reasons but too much lighting is actually a common problem with nems that come from a non-members tank. They take awhile to acclimate their zoox to the amount of light you have. Since it's a nem, it'll just move somewhere else if it doesn't like its current conditions... Yes it could be other reasons, but this seems the most likely as it otherwise looks very healthy. It won't hurt your tank either to cut back the lights a few days and see if that helps... think of it as a few cloudy days in the ocean...

 

[Adam]

Thank you Jin! She is a very cool looking. Another reason I got it is they aren't supposed to move around much once you make them happy. I guess I need to go ring shopping... lol

I didn't think that with it being a bottom dweller that the lights would be too high. I cut the Blues from 60% down to 30%. I haven't had the Whites on much lately but I cut them from 30 to 15% and turned them back on. I've also got the T5's set to off now and they won't come back on. Does that sound like it's low enough?

I was also thinking about cutting a piece of 4" PVC to put on the bottom of the tank and filling with sugar fine sand. Has anyone done that successfully?

 

[Adam]

I've also drastically cut the flow down. The WAV's are hard set to 1%. There has been no feeding other than any mysis or food particles that may have settled on it from fish feeding.

She has been in the same general area for about 18hrs now and is rested up against the base of the center arch rock structure on the right side. My wife just texted me the it appears to be attempting to set its foot.