Got a rose BTA on Saturday. Got him home and in my tank, put him in the wrong area of my tank and the water current helped push him between some live rock and the back of the tank. Might of made a mistake, but felt that I needed to rescue him. I reached in to get him and as I tried to catch him, the current and my probing pushed him behind the rock and up under an opening into a cave in the live rock. I broke down the live rock to get him out and put him in a more sheltered area with less current. He immediately stuck to the rock and has not moved at all. He spit up some white cottage cheese looking substance from his mouth. I figured that he would clean up on his own and left him be. Today the cottage cheese was still half way out of his mouth. After moving the rock around yesterday, my Zina was stressed and I figured I would do a small water change just incase the stress caused an increase in secretions in the water. While I was at it, I decided to take a power head loose and blow the cottage cheese out of the middle of my new BTA. Tonight my BTA was emitting “smoke”. He was spawning. Does this mean that he is all right after all he has been through, or is this a bad sign and that he is very stressed and is trying to secure survival of the species because he is in danger of dying? Any thoughts would be appreciated. I know he has had a rough time and I have done a very poor job with him so far. I just hope that he pulls through.

sounds like he is just really stressed. some people would say that if stressed enough they can split to insure survival of the species. i am no expert, but it sounds stress related to me. i would say leae him alone and keep an eye on him for a few days.

Im no expert when it comes to anemones, however i wouldnt touch the water anymore until its life either improves or declines. Any water changes might stress it out even more and make the situation worse.

Just my 2-cents

both of these guys are on here..
anemones will often shrivel and hide when stressed like this.
in extreme cases when they have been damages, they can actual purge there innards.

this "spawn" stuff you saw was likely the anemone simply purging more of the stuff from inside.

here are my recommendations
leave the water alone and the tank,
place the rock in a medium level of the tank with low to medium flow
if and when it starts to fill back out or up, then give him a few more days to be monitored. after a few days start feeding small amounts some some meaty food, like shrimp, crab, clam, oyster, etc. then see how its doing after that.. :)