Bleached gig advise?

[geckoejon]

Hello,

I picked up a bleached blue gig about 6 weeks ago. I treated with cipro and after a week put it into my dt. I have a couple of areas of concern....

First, it is not deflating, but it is not fully expanding either. It has been like this for the last 5 weeks since adding to the dt. It looks pretty much the same as when I picked it up. I'm kind of concerned about it not expanding though. Maybe I should lower the LEDs? I thought gigs liked very bright light. My other 2 gigs look great and are fully expanded.

Second, it is bleached. It has blue tips, but the flesh tentacles except for the tips are bleached and white. I'm assuming that it is because of a lack of zoo. Anyway to speed up the zoo recovery process or any other advise to help it recover? I tried feeding a couple weeks ago. It expelled the small piece of krill after a couple hours. I haven't tried since.

Any thoughts or advise?

 

[OrionN]

take a picture and show us.

 

[geckoejon]

here is a quick cell pic from this morning. it pretty much always looks like this. not fully inflated, but not deflated either....

thoughts?

just fyi, a guy at a lfs just let me know he has a nice lemon yellow gig in stock. i'm going to check it out today not sure if it's supposed to be yellow or a partially bleached green.

 

[OrionN]

Give it good water movement and give it the best water condition and wait and see. If you have access to a few tentacles of a healthy Gigantea you may want to feed it to him in some food, as in transplant some zoos to him, it may help him recover faster.

 

[geckoejon]

yes, i have a couple healthy gigs. i might try to snip a couple tentacles and feed it. i'm nervous about snipping the healthy ones though. they are soooo sticky that they wrap up on anything that they touch.

 

[taylor t]

yes, i have a couple healthy gigs. i might try to snip a couple tentacles and feed it. i'm nervous about snipping the healthy ones though. they are soooo sticky that they wrap up on anything that they touch.

I'm not convinced this works, but an easy way to do this, would be to take a piece of food, (fake) feed to your healthy gig, rip it out once it makes contact, Wha lah, tents attached to food. Feed to "bleached" gig. Personally (oninion) I think if they are kept in good water conditions, good light and good flow, they will develop what they need on their own. No need to "try" to re-instate zoo. They can do on their own. I don't believe in the "transplant" of zoo... Time and good water needed only. IF, transplant worked, we could change colors... My opinion, no scientific evidence to prove otherwise. Many ways to reef.... Best of luck.

...I'm not a fan of feeding acclimating gigs...

 

[OrionN]

........ IF, transplant worked, we could change colors.... ...

The zooxathellae are commensal organism. Zooxanthellae do not impart the (bright green, red, blue) color of the animals. Only the golden brown of unbleached animals. The colors are produced by the animal genetic and will not change with transfer of zooxanthellae from another animal.

Clam farmers, to improve survival of baby clams, clam farmer puree a adult clam and feed the baby clams with this puree (put into the baby tank). If they do not do this the survival of the baby clams is much less because it can take them a long time to get appropriate zooxanthellae from the water. These zooxanthellae require host to survive and thrive long term. They are not abundance in the sea water. This is in fact zooxanthellae transplant from one clam to the thousands of the baby clams that does not yet have commensal zooxanthellae.

 

[OrionN]

And the baby clams do not all end up looking the same as the scarified clam.

 

[geckoejon]

The zooxathellae are commensal organism. Zooxanthellae do not impart the (bright green, red, blue) color of the animals. Only the golden brown of unbleached animals. The colors are produced by the animal genetic and will not change with transfer of zooxanthellae from another animal.

Clam farmers, to improve survival of baby clams, clam farmer puree a adult clam and feed the baby clams with this puree (put into the baby tank). If they do not do this the survival of the baby clams is much less because it can take them a long time to get appropriate zooxanthellae from the water. These zooxanthellae require host to survive and thrive long term. They are not abundance in the sea water. This is in fact zooxanthellae transplant from one clam to the thousands of the baby clams that does not yet have commensal zooxanthellae.

that is great info... thanks for sharing!

 

[Ryleerei]

I'm a believer in zoo transplant and am going through the process right now...fingers crossed

 

[geckoejon]

update...

by january my blue gig had shrunk and bleached to completely white. i performed a zoo transplant from one of my multi-colored gigs the beginning of january. i was waiting for it to start falling apart and was ready to toss it....

then.... 2 weeks ago it started darkening up!!! it now has a nice dark base color and is darker then i have ever seen it! yeah! lol not sure if the zoo transplant is a coincidence or not. either way, i'm a happy reefer!

the tentacles are still only partially extended, but it is finally feeding and has some color. looks like it's on the mend after having it for 6 months. just thought i would share