Gig Problem

[hansonfam]

Good evening

Okay long story put into short form
I bought a gig in Oct of last year. He was brown and blah looking and turned into this magnificent specimen of Multi colours. Has never deflated never had issues at all. I then added a baby purple one in may and have never had an issue with that one either.

I then got greedy and added a baby yellow one who lasted 3 days...So then in the next couple days the purple one deflated,inflated for a couple days and then has not deflated since and is bigger then ever. I will add i did a 25% water change and changed the carbon. Through this the multi colour was good. So then the multi coulour started the same routine a few days ago and really hasn't stopped. Still incredibly sticky and holding the rock for dear life just the cycle. I just did another 25% water change and changed the carbon again.

So infection? And just hope for the best and kick myself repeatdly for being greedy or is it possible there was chemical warfare with that many in a small space?

Im thinking infection myself.....If so we don't have a way to treat them do we?

I should add params are as follows.

Salinity: 1.026
Temp steady 80
Calcium 400
Dkh- 8
Mag 1300

Light is a 2 month old phoneix 14k, 250 watt in a Lumenmax Pendent

Thanks
Lisa

 

[OrionN]

I don't know of anybody with more experience in keeping multiple S. gigantea together except for a handful. So If you can just keep us update so we all can learn.
FWIW, I had a bright green Hadoni for two years without problem, then I MO a blue one to added into the same tank. The blue one was sick and lasted 2 weeks. After the inflating and deflating cycle and dead of the blue one, the green one did the same and was dead 2 weeks after that. IMO, it was infection. I certainly keep multi anemone of the same species together without problem in the past.
Also, It does not make any sense for anemone put out toxin against the same species. There is two reason that this does not mkae any survival advantage:

1. Any toxin produced got to be most toxic to the anemone that produced it because it is nearest to the source of the toxin.
2. It is very expensive (energy intensive) for organism to produce toxin.

Why spent all those energy to produce toxin that have the most adverse effect against itself?

 

[hansonfam]

Thanks Minh i will definetly keep updating the thread to let everyone know.
As of about 10mins ago it was on the move so i had the oppurtunity to move it off the same rock as the purple one. Something i have been wanting to do for a few days now.
I have isolated him on his own rock with a fair amnt of flow in hopes that he can flush out anything that may b bothering him. What is odd is that it is still unbelievably sticky. Took it 5 mins to release from my hand. And its colour is still great. So it is like it is trying to flush its system. I had a thought after i wrote the first post into wondering if it was bad food. I have been feeding them uncooked holistic shrimp for months but the bag is looking a little freezer burnt. I always thaw it in the fridge soaked in selcon but maybe the feezer burning bothers them.

I don't know i am grasping at straws i think.

 

[tufacody]

I wish there was a good answer for you Lisa. I tried antibiotics on a mag once and it didn't turn out so well.

just kind of an off thought - seems to be mating season for anemones. I wonder if you have something related to that going on.

 

[Rod Buehler]

As you have noticed, giganteas dont often "look bad", so when they do, its a scary feeling. They do need to expel on occasion also, and IMO/IME, it just takes a little longer because they dont do it as often(?). My recommendation is to do nothing. Atleast for a few more days. (FWIW, I also tried to add a yellow to the same system with my other 2 and lost the yellow. This was a year or so ago, and the other 2 are still thriving

Good luck

 

[hansonfam]

Thanks Everyone for your comments.
We'll since i isolated it on its own rock last night he has yet to deflate again. Definetly not as big as it was but not the size of a baseball either. So i am hoping that i wont see him do that again.

Rod your right its scarey....I think its because we know how fragile they can be. I know i got almost cocky with the fact that i never had any problems with it from day one and then this happens...lol
And the yellow thing i wonder what the deal is with them. I originally bought a yellow one a yr and a half ago and it went through the Loooong and painful process of dieing. I knew from day one it was never gonna make it as it had no feeding response and the cycle of inflat/deflate.And come to think of it i don't know anyone who has a yellow one long term.

I currently have a yellow one in my other tank that i have had for 5 days now but have been watching at a local lfs for months. It was in the batch of when i got my purple one and am not sure why no one has bought it but it has been there for easily 2.5 months now. He is a little bleached but tentacles are long and he eats we'll and has never deflated yet. (knock on wood)...lol
So we will see if he really makes i t or not..

I will repost tonite after i can see what happens with the light cycle today..

 

[hansonfam]

Okay we'll he stayed inflated on its new rock all night and most of today and then deflasted for about an hour period and had now reinflated.
Tentacles are far from the length that they normally were and he is not inflating to his normal size either.
Purple one is still big as ever and not deflating at all.

I have no idea what is going on. All i can think of is that the little yellow one i introduced had an infection and the purple gig was able to shake it and this one is not.

I have no idea. I guess we will see what tomorrow brings.

 

[hansonfam]

Update!!!

I feed him yesterday morning and he was inflated and looking awsome in all its glory all day untill the lights went out and then it was back to a baseball again. It has then done the same thing again today.

Oddly the purple is still huge. So whatever it is it started with the little yellow obviously and he died. Then the purple started but it only lasted 2 days. Now whatever is going on is really affecting the multi.

I am not sure how to try and fix this?\
Just wait it out? And hope....lol

 

[delphinus]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15297821#post15297821 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Rod Buehler
As you have noticed, giganteas dont often "look bad", so when they do, its a scary feeling. They do need to expel on occasion also, and IMO/IME, it just takes a little longer because they dont do it as often(?). My recommendation is to do nothing. Atleast for a few more days. (FWIW, I also tried to add a yellow to the same system with my other 2 and lost the yellow. This was a year or so ago, and the other 2 are still thriving

Good luck

+1

IMO, try to distance yourself from the situation (hard to do, I know, but try) because overcompensating can do more harm. Just keep offering it little bits of food and if it starts eating up again, recovery should happen, but it seems to take a while so hang in there in the meantime.

It just does happen that they look like crap. I've had two, what I'll call "close calls" with my green in the last few months. The first was an obvious injury and the culprit appeared to be a cowry I had in the tank (there's a thread in here on RC about it somewhere). Sumped the cowry, anemone eventually recovered but it took close to two months to regain its full glory. I now know this is why I lost my brown/multicolour last year (started off as injury, then it would heal, then it would get another injury, then heal .. I didn't know what was causing it. Eventually it didn't recover. Damn cowry. I wish I had put two and two together. I had had that carpet nearly 5 years. The green and brown were side by side for 4 years without incident so I don't think it's a case of competition or chemical warfare or anything of the sort. They were fine and even touching most days without any incident).

the second close call I can't conclusively say what was going on. It just started deflating every couple of days shortly after introducing my purple. (Who is doing fine and growing.) Related to the introduction of the new anemone? Maybe, I can't rule it out of course but who really knows. Infection? Maybe? I just kept offering it mysis and while it didn't eat for a while (which had me worried), it did start eating again. And is now nearly back to normal.

But as stated, it could also be a spawn thing. When I had my ritteri and it would spawn, it would do a similar thing after spawning and look like .. well, crap (not to put too fine a point on it ) for weeks afterwards. So I was wondering if it could have been a spawn event that I simply didn't get to witness.

So who knows... Darn things have a few mysteries to them yet.

Good luck!

 

[hansonfam]

Okay we'll here is an update.

So far he is still here. But still Deflates daily. Feeding response is still there but slower. Just takes him a little longer to eat it. He deflates every day when the lights go out to about the size of a baseball and then by the time i get up in the morning he is big again and stays big untill the lights go out again.I am taking it as a good sign that we are not doing what he was in the beginning of the deflate and reinflate multiple times a day.

Beats me what is going on so i have my fingers crossed.
The purple one is still himself so i have no idea.
My theory is he has an infection and is flushing it and the multiple flushing daily was when it was really at its worst and now things are clearing slowly? It might be wishful thinking but hey....lol

Anybody else have a theory?

 

[Creetin]

I know this thread has been dead for a bit, I have been digging thru all these types of threads to get info on gigantea's and haddoni's
My gig when stressed started spawning. I have read from other's that when nems are stressed or dieing that a last ditch effort by the nem was to spawn before death.
Maybe this triggered a spawning even for your other nems?

I would like to hear of what came of these nems.
Hope all is well.