Gig rescue attempt

[jscarlata]

I'm trying to rescue a beautiful blue purple and blue gigantea. It was at a local place a Few Weeks and today I went in with the intention of buying it, but it was too far gone for meTo invest money in it. The place is really a good store and one of the men that worked there shared my sentiment toward the dying nem. So I took it home to try and save it. It went thru a drip acclimation with a lot of air over about 2.5 hours, it's been in my tank for about an hour and a half and It's now making a solid go at inflating. The mouth was gaping for a bit but it closed right in front of me an now looks pretty decent.

 

[jscarlata]

It's so wild how quickly it's changing shape in front of me, this is a minute later than above
Pics

 

[D-Nak]

If a "few weeks" means about 3-4 weeks, you're right at the stage where it starts to take a quick turn for the worse. I'd watch it very carefully for signs of it starting to melt.

What are your lighting and water params?

It looks to be in pretty bad shape. Judging by the color, it looks like to have expelled most of its zooxanthellae. The tentacle length looks bad as well. In my opinion, gigs look decent to the casual observer but the reality is that they are dying from the inside out, usually from an infection or other internal ailment.

Were you hoping for advice on how to best move forward, or do you have a plan in place?

 

[jscarlata]

I know it's a long shot... Advice would be appreciated, the way it looks now its not going to make much difference

 

[illcssd]

Perfect water quality, no clownfish bothering it, and a whole lot of luck. Nursing a gigantea that far gone back to health is nearly impossible. Don't try to feed it yet, as I doubt it will eat.
What lighting do you have on your tank, what size tank, what do you have for flow? For now, clean water is the most important, but it will need very strong random flow, and high lighting, to continue living, if it makes a comeback at all.

 

[jscarlata]

I have a 90g, w an 8 bulb 48" tek elite t5. For flow I have two tunze 6055's on a 7096 controller. I have the flow gentle on the nem because i
Didn't want to blast it while it was getting situated, the lights I had only half the fixture on because the tank it was in had very little lighting. So it's in he same shape as when I left it last night, doesn't look good but it's not worse. Should I give it more flow, and should I let the whole fixture come on today? My lights come on around 4:30pm.

 

[illcssd]

It doesn't look super bleached. The lfs you recieved him from probably didn't have it long, so he isn't really adapted to any lighting. That should be plenty of light, and I would go ahead and turn it on all the way. Can't hurt. The general consensus is that most of the time these anemones in this condition are dealing with some kind of infection. Antibiotics have been tried, and from what I've seen failed.

Don't move the anemone, and I wouldn't point any flow towards it, leave it gentle while it is acclimating/not attached to the rock. Otherwise it may end up in one of the pumps.

I do wish you luck, but definitely keep a close eye on it and be wary of it floating around the tank or disintegrating.

 

[jscarlata]

Thanks for the input, I appreciate it. I figured I had a very slim shot at getting it to live, more so than its chances at the store, it was sure to expire in their tank. It's Gonna be a little stressful being at work wondering how it's doing all
Day.

 

[BonsaiNut]

We'll know more in the next 24 hours... You've got an SPS setup which is good - it gives me a decent level of confidence that water and light parameters are good.

 

[jscarlata]

Thanks. I have a mixed sps/lps setup, running GFO and carbon now. All my sps are growing steadily and quickly, most have nice colors, some better than others, but all my livestock, fish and coral are very healthy and growing. I'm trying to stay positive. I've been reading as much as I can about them in various threads. I read several threads where people say that you SHOULD feed them in this state as that's the only way they will get enough energy to heal and inflate...I'm conflicted...should I squirt a
Little mysis and enriched brine into its mouth tonight?

 

[jscarlata]

Well it's not looking good, pretty much as expected. It's either dying or trying to split. Keeps spitting out white milky smoky stuff, opening and closing its mouth from tight to full gape. It's not Melton away yet, but the tank is a little cloudy. I think I should take it out, but not sure. Any recos?

 

[D-Nak]

Well, I can tell you that gigs don't split. I could be stress spawning, in which case you have a boy.

In terms of feeding, I don't think there is a clear answer. Some say to force feed, but the counter response to that is that they may not have the energy to digest it. You can try feeding small particle food, so it doesn't have to work hard to digest it, or even spot feeding with a vitamin supplement such as Selcon.

Here's something purely anecdotal: when I had my sick gig, I shot iodine into its mouth (just the recommended dose for the tank size). My thinking was that this could in some way help to fight any internal infection. I also figured I would lose the anemone anyway, so trying anything that might help was worth it. If you decide to do it, test your iodine levels to make sure you're going overboard to kill your coral (though I'm not sure how much it takes). I actually thought the gig looked better after my "treatment" but it was probably me just hoping for the best.

 

[jscarlata]

Thanks d-nak, I made the decision to remove it. It was disintegrating from underneath, and it was just going downhill. I just finished doing a 40g water change/cleaning, oh man the water was nasty, and the nem was melting underneath, it was Pretty gross. I'm glad I pulled it, it would have made a big mess. So far it looks like there was no coral damage and all fish seem fine. Did a little rockwork too, the tank was messy anyway so why not get it done; I needed more space for frags and stuf. I feel bad for it, it's too bad, hopefully they don't randomly stock these anymore, the store lost some money and the animal lost its life unnecessarily . I tried to help
It, but was not early enough and was probably too rough with it in hindsight. Even though i had thin nitrile gloves on I was spooked when I felt its tentacles sticking to me, so it could have been me that tore it, I really don't know. Lessons were
Learned so it wasn't a total waste, but it was an unfortunate thing...