Gigantea advice needed

[Postal]

Ok, time for a quick back story. A month or two ago a local hobbiest had his entire system including the anemone for sale. Someone beat me to the purchase but I saw in pictures the anemone looked relatively healthy. Last weekend the person who bought the system contacted me and said she needed to sell it immediately. Pick up the system on Saturday but you can see the anemone has suffered some under her care.

The anemone has not started the inflate/deflate cycle and its mouth has been closed since I put it in my tank. So do I just give it time to regain its health and regrow tentacles or do you think I should consider the cipro treatment? Thanks.

 

[D-Nak]

In this case, I would not start a Cipro treatment. Looks like the gig simply suffered from low light (looks like it's starting to bleach). I experienced the exact same scenario as you did. I purchased a gig from a reefer who was taking down his tank. His looked almost exactly like the one you picked up. In approximately one week in my tank, the gig perked up and looked like your typical gig -- long pointy tentacles which creates the "shag rug" look. Just blast it with light and give it some good flow, and I'm guessing it'll be fine.

 

[OrionN]

I agree with D-Nak. That anemone just need good care, food good water and light. It doesnot need antibiotic. Good luck with him.
Did you buy the entire set or just the anemone?

 

[Postal]

I bought the entire setup just to get the gigantea basically. Gigs are few and far between around here. I also ended up with 3 nice euphyllias, a small green bubble coral, and a couple other small corals. I think I can end up selling the equipment and rock for enough money that the gig and corals will end up costing me $100 or less.

 

[D-Nak]

I bought the entire setup just to get the gigantea basically. Gigs are few and far between around here. I also ended up with 3 nice euphyllias, a small green bubble coral, and a couple other small corals. I think I can end up selling the equipment and rock for enough money that the gig and corals will end up costing me $100 or less.

To me, finding a healthy gig at any price is an excellent find. Finding a gig under $200 is good, under $100 is a steal.

 

[OrionN]

What length we, anemone lovers, go through to get a healthy Gigantea.
Good luck with him

 

[Kyle10181]

he's still fairly healthy looking, just a little bleached; I personally would not begin treating it with Cipro at this point, I believe given some time and TLC that it will come around again and color up in no time . When I purchased my purple Gig, he was almost completely white.

Best wishes with this little fella's recovery

 

[D-Nak]

I hope this helps. Here's a photo of my gig, taken by the original owner when I asked for a photo:



Here's what it looked like under my care for a couple of weeks:



And finally, just prior to me selling it (grew to almost 16"):


I was happy to sell it to an experienced reefer with a 360 gallon tank! You can see the "replacement" gig in the bottom right corner.

 

[Postal]

Here are a few updated pics of the gig. It seems to really be doing well. Tentacle density is increasing slowly and tentacle length has definitely increased. The last few days it has expanded to its biggest sizes yet.
The only downside has been the stress on my haddoni. It is in a different tank on the same system. Nothing else has changed but the haddoni started walking some after the gig was added, and as the gig has improved the haddoni has really declined. At this point I am considering moving the haddoni into its own Solana since it seems so stressed since the addition of the gig. Maybe the decline of the haddoni isn't connected to the gig, but it certainly seems the most likely answer.

 

[D-Nak]

Sweet. Looks a lot better. Congrats! Nice to see updates like this.

 

[Overboard]

Looking good!

 

[OrionN]

The Gigantea looks good. I got three Gigantea in 1 tank and a Red Haddoni in another tank in the same system. All are doing well and growing well. I would consider other reason why your Haddoni not doing well, not automatically thinks that it is due to the Gigantea.

 

[Postal]

Still steadily improving...

 

[Postal]

Here are a few updated pics. It is not quite as blue as the pics, but is a lot closer than you would expect. It is growing very quickly even without supplemental feeding.

 

[Postal]

Time for the 6 (almost 7) month update.
The gig just keeps getting bigger and more colorful. As you can see, the tentacles are filling in more and more, and they are WAY longer than they used to be.
The color is way off in the video thanks to a combo of LED's and a cell phone video. The nem is a beautiful bright blue.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/n9CPsddUzbg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[OrionN]

Did you remove the Haddoni? Your Gigantea looks great.

 

[Postal]

Did you remove the Haddoni? Your Gigantea looks great.

Yes, I moved the haddoni to a separate tank and it recovered. I just sold it to another reefer with bigger tank and two other haddonis when I got another gig (up to 3 now).

 

[worm5406]

WOW... Nice!!

I am really impressed!

So do you think the haddoni had issues from the gig??

 

[davocean]

Nice pics/vid, beautiful gig!

 

[Postal]

So do you think the haddoni had issues from the gig??

Yes. The haddoni thrived for two years before introduction of the gig. Haddoni reacted unlike anything I had seen from a stressed/sick anemone before. After being moved to a separate system the haddoni recovered. Not to mention that if the system was healthy enough for the gig to make a full recovery, why would the haddoni have issues in the same system unless it was caused by the gig.

Here is my thread about it.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2342122