Thread: BTA queries
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Old 12-11-2010, 02:25 PM
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When I started up my previously owned 77 gal I added a BTA about 6 months in. All I had was a 2 x 39 watt Hagen GLO T5HO light (one 10000K lamp & one actinic) at the time. It didn't die on me but it also don't exactly thrive. I had a juvenile Maroon clownfish as well and after a few weeks it finally made the BTA its home. I was a newb in the hobby at the time and although I did some research, I wouldn't necessarily recommend doing what I did initially. I now have 2 x 250 watt MH and 2 x 54 watt retrofit T5HO (overdriven) and the BTA has become 4 through a couple of splits a few months back. Traded one off at a frag swap so 3 are still in the tank, huddled close together, hosting my now pair of Maroons that are spawning regularly.

Something else I changed a year after startup is switching to RODI water from treated tap water and adding a couple of VorTech powerheads to improve flow. I think all of these upgrades have contributed greatly to the health of not only my BTAs but also the remaining livestock.

Having said that, in your smaller system, your lighting should suffice for a small BTA and I think it's been up and running long enough to be sufficiently stable. As anemones go, BTAs are probably one of the easier species to maintain. The downside is that the natural hosting clownfish are Maroons. There are other species of clown that may and do host in BTAs, but Maroons are pretty much 100% going to go for a BTA. The problem with this is, Maroons are one of the larger clownfish species and I think you're ok with a 20 gal, but it's definitely at the lower limit as far as size goes. My female is at least 5" now, but even in my 77 she rarely strays more than a couple of feet from the BTAs, so you're probably ok. That's the good thing about most clowns, they don't need that much room to swim, since once they've taken to a host, they stay close most of the time. The only time my female roams is when it's feeding time (she's a pig), or she feels threatened. Then she'll roam around a bit or come shooting at whatever the perceived threat is.

My BTA didn't grow much in the first year and there were some issues, probably with my initial limited lighting and poorer water quality. I feed chunks of silversides every few days and with the improved lighting, water quality, they're growing quite large. You'll be ok for a while with a small one to start, but will likely find a tank upsize necessary at some point down the road. Also, once it starts growing, it can get large fairly quickly. You will be very limited to what, if any other corals or fish you can keep in that tank after adding a BTA and a pair of clowns.
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