RFA burying himself - should I be worried?

[tidepooldreamer]

As the title says, one of my RFAs has buried himself totally in the sand the last 2 nights in a row. I know this is normal behavior for them as a defense if they get bothered, and he came back out all of today and looked perfectly normal. It just seems a little weird to me for him to do it twice in quick succession.

 

I have 2 RFAs - the bigger one was added 11/4 and the smaller one who is burying on 11/15. Everything else in the tank looks normal and unbothered, including the other nem. Since he is small, I wonder if maybe it's my hermit or a snail walking over him that's disturbing him? He's about 1" across fully open.

 

Is there anything else I should be checking in response to this behavior? Thanks!

 

Here's both of them from this afternoon. I don't think the anemone crab is causing the problem - he lives in a rocky cave above them and doesn't seem very interested in the nems themselves. I've seen him go down and touch the bigger one once before going back to his place on the rock.

 

[banasophia]

Not sure, beautiful RFAs though. You might want to check the RFA thread if you haven’t already.

[seabass]

I wouldn't worry about it.  It might move if it's not happy there.  Like you said, it could have gotten irritated and had enough.  Try feeding them a little, a couple of times a week.  If it's eating alright, it should be fine.

[banasophia]

Here’s the thread I had mentioned, btw, it’s a good one:

 

[tidepooldreamer]

7 hours ago, banasophia said:

Not sure, beautiful RFAs though. You might want to check the RFA thread if you haven’t already.

Thank you! I think I've come across that thread before in my reading but I'll check it out again.

 

6 hours ago, seabass said:

I wouldn't worry about it.  It might move if it's not happy there.  Like you said, it could have gotten irritated and had enough.  Try feeding them a little, a couple of times a week.  If it's eating alright, it should be fine.

Thanks. The big one eats really well, he has a very strong feeding response and I was impressed he could snatch food that was flowing past so quickly! The smaller one I have only directly fed once and he did react strongly/eat that too; my only worry re feeding him is that I know it's bad to give them a piece that's too big and with his small size I'm not sure quite where that line falls. When I put frozen food in the tank there's generally bits drifting around after so I imagine he is catching some of that regardless but I can try target feeding him again as well. I try to feed on the heavier side to help my nutrients which have been chronically low.

 

 

He came out again nicely last night after I posted this but I saw he's almost buried again this morning. I tried to see if there was anything nearby but there didn't seem to be, except a strand of algae from when I'd scraped down the glass that he seemed to be holding. I don't know if that would bother him if he'd grabbed it and didn't like it? I imagine he'd just let go...

[tidepooldreamer]

An update for anyone wondering - he pooped on Wednesday and has not been burying himself since (except the night of), so I'm guessing that was what was going on! I did read they usually act weird for a few days before.