Anemone cultures- I want to get down to the bottom of what exactly is infecting nems

[Tango451]

Hi everyone,

I think this goes for most if not all of us, but I want to figure out exactly what is/are infecting all of our anemones to be able to understand them better. I have always wondered if the bacteria lives symbiotically within the anemones and high stress causes an imbalance and the bacteria takes over as well as many other scenarios etc. I think this is very important since so many in the trade/ hobby fall ill and die and it is our responsibility to care for them.

I was hoping this could be a collaboration between many of us on here to figure out the best way to accomplish this (funds aside for now and once we have the plan in place I was thinking we could do a crowd funding campaign - I could set that up pretty fast and we could share it here if the rules of rc here permit it and maybe ask a few reef clubs in different states if they would be willing to sponsor it).

I was thinking several of us in different states could go look for anemones that have the appearance of illness/ high stress. Would different states help to randomize the sample anemones?

I think we should aim for them being around the same size, same species (I was thinking about focusing on gig or haddoni or possibly both- or one of us does a gig, another a haddoni, and another a mag etc), and have a checklist of signs of the anemones we want to get. Just as well I think we should try to have all of our variables as equal as possible (water temp, salinity etc - I know this wouldn't effect a bacterial culture but I think it's best to be as concise as possible.



Does anyone have a plan in mind how to do this? Would anyone be interested in teaming up to figure this out? If so, I think we should figure out exacly how we want to best achieve this, have a written plan, and then go from there. Also would anyone have any specific labs in mind on where we would send out cultures? Should cultures only be sent before the treatment begins, before and after, and should we send samples in from very established (years) anemones to compare?


And if by chance we already know what bacteria infects our anemones and cultures are unnecessary please let me know and I apologize for this post (I just have never found anything with this information)

 

[hotelbravo]

i was reading something a few weeks back that was talking about how that scientific studies have been unable to pinpoint the exact cause of the "infection" in most anemones. they dont know if its a bacteria or a virus or parasite but the one thing that they do know is that they sometimes respond better to antibacterial medicine which does lead them to it being a bacteria but it is not always the case.

 

[OrionN]

I though about this a lot. The logistic and cost is formidable. It I am (or someone) going to do this, it cost about 100.00 for each culture. I need to have access to a reasonable numbers of sick anemones when they first get sick. I cannot request samples to be send to me. In order to have accurate result, the sample must be sterile collected and culture start right away.
IMO, to culture a sick anemone, I need to take him semi-out of the water, and use a syringe with large bore needle to draw out about 10+ cc of internal fluid for culture. This likely do the anemone in.
So, large numbers of sick anemone, and $100.00 a pop for each culture result in not a doable project for me.
Best place for this to be done is at one of the dealer, but I don't see this happen.

 

[Tango451]

What do you think would the minimum number of anemones from just one species to be tested?

If, and I know it is a long shot, we were given something like ~$1,500 to culture and purchase maybe 10 anemone (considering a sick gig or haddoni if not free should be $50 or less) would it be worth it/ if 10 is not enough would it at least be helpful for doing it fully in the future? Also, do the anemones need to be collected from the same shipment or can they have come in from different shipments?

 

[OrionN]

It is all depends on what we come up with. If 10 cultures from 10 different wholesalers, and different suppliers all with the same bacterial, then that is all we need. However if we have 10 bacterial from these, then obviously more samples are needed.
then we have problem with contamination, no growth....