An experiment in gavage feeding an unhealthy H. magnifica

[WrinkleFreeZone]

I consider myself a lucky one. I have been successfully keeping three H. magnifica anemones and have yet to lose one. My opinions about the early care for these creatures are not popular. There is an idea that circulates on this board that feeding these animals early in there acclimation period "stresses" them and contributes to their demise. I believe that this idea is false. I believe that early feeding of these animals is necessary for their survival.

Today while in the LFS, I came across an extremely bleached and obviously unhealthy H. magnifica that was mislabeled as a LTA. It was being kept in a tank under PC's and had according to the owner arrived 1 week ago. When I found it the mouth was gaping, and the tentacles were not "sticky." It was only holding onto the highest point in the tank by a very small portion of its foot. Here is my test subject in what I am converting over to a species tank to keep them in now:

For those of you wishing to confirm the species, here is a shot of the foot:

The specimen is far more bleached in person than these pictures let on. These anemones are uncommon in our LFS. I decided to buy this one because I am certain that it would die if the average reefer bought it. I am fully prepared to have it die in my tank, but I'm going to try to salvage it and in the process find some support for my opinions about early feeding in this particular species. The purpose of this post is to document my attempt to save this anemone and to give all of you full disclosure of what happens.

 

[PAZE]

What lighting will you be useing, as for flow how will you have the flow possition, on the nem, also what will you be feeding, if it is not sticky how will it hold onto food, and how often will you be feeding it? just a few Q's, thanks

 

[WrinkleFreeZone]

In my experience, when these anemones are ill there is a lack of a feeding response that seems to fail at several levels. I'm not sure if this represents a continuum that is a marker for declining health but this is what I have observed in my own specimens.

Failure in feeding from my observations occurs for these reasons: the nematocysts fail to fire and the food item does not get stuck to the tentacle, there is lack of contraction of the tentacle to promote contact of the item with additional tentacles, there is failure of a coordinated movement of the collar to fold and grasp the item and move the food item to the oral disc, there is a failure of the oral disc to close to allow digestion of the food item. It is possible, that there could be impaired digestion of the item at the extreme end of this continuum, but at this level, it would make sense that the animal was in extremis (e.g. so near death it may never be salvaged.). I believe this is where the idea that feeding them "stresses" them.

I believe that when these anemones arrive that they are basically running on "fumes." After collection, they've been kept in holding tanks with less than ideal conditions for an unspecified period of time before being shipped in the dark to a supplier who then puts them into a tank with less than ideal conditions. Here they're kept again for an unspecified period of time, before being shipped in the dark to distributor or store where yet again they're put into a tank with less than ideal conditions for an unspecified period of time before arriving in our own tanks. How long does this process take - certainly weeks, possibly months?

This is all opinion, but it makes sense to me that throughout all of this, the anemones have been forced to rely on their reserves to a point that they are malnourished. Some of these animals are very large, and the energy demands must be equally large to maintain them in health. In a malnourished state, the investment in energy intensive protein production for nematocysts would not be a priority - explaining why they're not "sticky." Further malnourishment may not allow for adequate organized muscular contraction, possibly due to breakdown of the proteins necessary to perform the function. In my mind, this process dominos until they are so malnourished that they can't even produce the enzymes necessary to support digestion and they die.

How do you interrupt this process? Nutrition of course! Further starvation of these anemones over "stress" concerns just moves them closer on the continuum to death.

How do you feed an anemone that isn't capable of holding, or moving food items to its mouth? - Gavage. Gavage basically means to force feed and comes from the French - to gorge. Ever eat foie gras? This is how they make the geese livers fatty for your pate. I make my H. mags fat using a Turkey Baster until they can take care of themselves. Stay tuned for pictures of this...
-B

 

[WrinkleFreeZone]

Paul - I am now keeping these anemones in a 60 gallon cube that I'm setting up as a temporary species tank. I have other plans for them in the future and will upgrade this setup to a more permanent one. The tank is lit by a single 250 W 14K MH. For flow, there is a return, and one Vortech MP40w cranked up all the way. I used to have them in my main display but one wandered into a pump and killed every fish in my tank except my paired percs. That is not a lesson that I need to repeat, hence, the species tank. The anemone with the haircut is recovering nicely at this point.

In terms of introduction of the unhealthy specimen into this tank - quick drip acclimation and then I placed it at the bottom of my rockwork within the outflow from the Vortech. I had to hold it against the rockwork until it attached. This took about 5 minutes before enough of the foot held that it stayed. I want it in significant flow and in the lowest light possible. With such flow, it is likely to move away from the pump not towards it if it decides to move. In terms of lighting, it is extremely bleached, and I expect it to hang out low for the time being before settling in where it wants to.

So now for the promised gavage picture. I know it's not ideal but it's the best that I could do with one hand holding the camera away and one gavaging the anemone. The next time I do it, I'll have the wife take the picture.

I attempted to feed it mysis but largely it wouldn't stick to its tentacles. Anything that stuck was released. So then I moved on to the Turkey Baster with a few pieces of mysis. The tip is positioned just inside it's open oral disc in this shot. The disc closed around it with a little patience and I deposited a few pieces of mysis. I don't inject air into the body of the anemone. If it releases it, I'll try again once more tonight. If no success, I'll try tomorrow.
-B

 

[WrinkleFreeZone]

This afternoon marks 24 hours in the tank. As I suspected, it moved some and is now settled low on the rockwork out of the direct outflow of the Vortech. However, it has remained in an area of very high flow.

The first attempt at gavage feeding was not successful. Initially the mouth closed but within about an hour it opened again and the mysis was lost. I repeated this once last night and this seemed to work. When I went to bed, the mouth remained closed.

The posture of the oral disc is improved today and is not gaping open at this point but it is not by any means closed tightly. I attempted to feed it again this morning by placing mysis in the tentacles, but again not many shrimp stuck and those that did were released in a short period. I will attempt a few pieces of mysis by gavage feeding again tonight. If it does not take this, I will try again tomorrow.

-B

 

[WrinkleFreeZone]

I fed my anemone tonight by the gavage method again. The first attempt was not successful. I placed the shrimp in it's mouth but it was very slow to close and the shrimp drifted out. Furthermore, there was no contraction of the collar. After a few minutes, I repeated this technique and this time there was some modest contraction of the collar on one side of the anemone. The process took close to 30 minutes to complete between placement of the shrimp into the mouth and its ultimate closure with the mysis trapped inside I will watch the mouth until I go to bed to see if it opens again and to be sure that the mysis is not lost. My plan is to attempt to feed some mysis into the tentacles tomorrow to see if there is any improvement in the anemone's ability to catch and hold food.
-B

 

[Grassroots]

This is extremely interesting, I have not had much success keeping anemones but this gives me a better idea on how to treat them when first introduced if they are unhealthy. Keep posting on this. Have a good one.

 

[tufacody]

Have you ever considered actual needle injection? I have read about some German reefers that will nurse sick animals in a QT tank by adding fructose to the water.

 

[WrinkleFreeZone]

Tufacody - I don't think that it would be possible to inject the anemones with a sugar solution without causing severe injury to the tissues that you inject into. There are substantial osmotic forces that come into play when you're dealing with solutions in tissues. In us, extravasation injuries are the perfect example of what goes wrong when this happens.

To do this safely, it would require creating a solution designed to account for the oncotic pressure of the extracellular and intracellular spaces of the anemones, as well as account for the type of sugar that they are using for energy. I don't know for sure, but I suspect it would be glucose, given that this is the sugar produced at the conclusion of photosynthesis. These things may have been studied, but I personally don't know this literature.

You do pose an interesting thought about some sort of sugar/salt solution that the animal is kept in as it recovers. Even doing this would require caution though because you can still run into trouble. Just think about the defenseless garden slugs that people pour salt on. I'd rather my anemone didn't shrivel up. It seems like a sure fire way to kill it.
-B

 

[tufacody]

Well I certainly not advocating it - just pondering. To me it makes more sense to make the water itself more nutritional, but I'm not sure how that would be accomplished.

 

[WrinkleFreeZone]

Tufacody - I agree with you. If I knew how to do it, I'd try it. You could deliver a lot of nutrition to a huge percentage of the animal, assuming that the cells on its surface are capable of incorporating it (I suspect that they probably are.) It's something I might think about and try to research for the next one that I find. I'd probably try and test it on something like an aiptasia or a majano in a dark tank first though. If you could get it to survive while completely light deprived it would support your point.

I've posted about gavage for H. mags in the past but basically was told that I'm full of "carp." People didn't believe that it was possible to do it and that feeding causes them more problems. The purpose of this post was to chronicle what I'm doing and to see if it makes it. If this one survives, the technique will be cemented in my mind as a viable option to help get them through the tricky initial period and hopefully advance this hobby. I know I'm not doing a randomized controlled trial, but I'm doing what I can with what I've got. So far so good on this one.
-B

 

[apayne]

Well I for one hope you are successful!!

Good luck,
Aaron

 

[garygb]

Fascinating work you're doing there. Look forward to hearing how this anemone fares for you. I tend to agree with you that feeding H. magnifica early on is a good idea. I did that with mine with success. Mine were never in as comprimised a state as your "guinea pig;" however, I did have to coax them to eat by using especially fresh food items and trying repeatedly before they would take the food in and keep it down.

 

[seattleguy]

B:
Thanks for documenting your experiment. I am looking forward to checking on your progress. I can't wait to see your anemone color up and get healthy!

 

[WrinkleFreeZone]

This morning, the posture of the mouth has made continued improvement. I am able to see that there is some partially digested shrimp that it is expelling. I view this as a positive sign. Some of the shrimp that I've been force feeding it must have remained within it. Furthermore, partial digestion of this shrimp would indicate that the anemone is getting some nutrition from this method. Here's an updated photo:

I will hold off on trying to feed into its tentacles until later this afternoon. If this fails, I'll try a few more pieces of mysis via gavage. My hope is that with continued delivery of even small amounts of nutrition that the anemone will again start producing nematocysts and generate contractions organized enough to hold food items and move them to its mouth.
-B

 

[bues0022]

You have a very interesting viewpoint on nursing these sick animals back to health. In fact, it makes all too perfect of sense to me. I work with a cat rescue, and they do the same things as these nems - get sick = don't want to eat = no nutrition so they get sicker = no food for extended periods of time = hepatic lipidosis = eventual death. How do we stop this downward spiral? force feeding high protein food! (gavage) We also leave some dry food down to temp them to continue on their own (mysis on tentacles) Eventually they pull out (usually). I'm going to stay tuned to this for sure! Though like you said it's nowhere near a controlled randomized study, it's a far more scientifically-based factual method than most "let's try this and see what happens".

 

[LiveRound69]

yea i hate going to LFS and seeing things like that...they should have a sign out front that reads "half dead creatures for sale !"...

where i live ...we have a LFS that has some people working in their that act like they've been hit in the head with a rock...i go in their sometimes for entertainment. I ask them questions and get ridiculous answers. Guess what im trying to say is...some people dont need to run fish stores. Hey pizza hut is hiring !.

by the way...good luck and i hope you succeed.

 

[WrinkleFreeZone]

Tonight, I fed into the tentacles and I'm pleased to report that there has been continued recovery of the anemone. It was able to hold onto a few pieces of mysis. However, after waiting about 10 minutes it was clear that there is still not coordinated enough contraction to deliver the mysis successfully to the mouth. In the presence of the food items, there was a weak contraction of the collar and the mouth opened some but it was not enough. Because of this response, I decided to gavage the anemone. I placed about about 10 mysis into the mouth and over about 20-30 minutes the mouth successfully closed with the shrimp inside. At this point, the posture of the mouth is the best that I've seen yet. It appears very tight. I'm hopeful that this is an early indicator that my efforts will be successful with this specimen.
-B

 

[WrinkleFreeZone]

It may seem obvious, but I was looking over the post and I've realized that I've forgotten to mention that the Vortech is in "feeding mode" while I'm gavaging. I do this so that the mysis doesn't get blown out of the mouth by the current and the anemone has a chance to engulf it.
-B

 

[fishkid6692]

this is really cool. if yours makes it i am going to try again and do what your doing. hope it works out for you!