Gigantea:Cloned

[nemoboy1]

I have some news whether its good or bad its up to you to decide. So I have had these 8 beautiful gigs in my possession since tuesday Feb 26th 2013. I didn't notice this until I went to take mug shots. Some of the gigs had some scar tissue that looks to either be healed or starting to heal. When I first discover this I felt that I got cheated with clones. They the supplier deliberately cut 1 into halves so I should have just gotten charged for one, lol. It might not be so bad since now we can have some sort of evidence to say yes it has been done.

You can debate whether it was scalped or it voluntarily split. My educated observation would say they sliced and diced it. I don't think they intentionally wanted me to see it but $$$ clouded their judgement. Now the secret is out.

Btw... I didn't slice these precious animals up and I don't condone in it as this might kill them. This is why I wanted to look into possible captivity breeding.
Cloning can be good if we can keep these animals alive afterwards (cipro might help in this process too). Thus by doing this it can probably save some gigs in the wild. But again to me breeding in captivity is best. Just my 2cents.

here are a few photos:

Here are a few video: Dont mind the guy who is talking and forgive sometimes he tends to think faster and stutters. lol

 

[Drew707]

First off - they look great ..nice buy.. 2nd. I would agree classic slice and dice.

Who did it lfs??

 

[elegance coral]

Thanks for taking the time to post the pic's and videos. I hope you continue to post in the upcoming weeks/months to document their progress.

IMHO, and with all due respect, those animals are in very bad shape. They are bleached very bad, and with the physical damage, they're going to have a very hard time recovering. You won't know if these animals are going to survive or not for several months. Unless they die quickly.

I honestly can't tell what caused the damage from the pic's and videos. To me, it looks like an anemone that's been caught in a power head, but I have no way to know for sure.

Good luck
EC

 

[OrionN]

These pictures are of the anemones 1-2 days after shipping. I think they looks pretty good. They are being treat for infection/preventing infection. I think this will help a lot. If it was not for the possibility of recently been cut in 1/2 I would think you have a good chance of keeping them alive with treatment. The bleaching is of little concern to me.

Where the mouth are, and the the likeness of some of these anemones, and the tentacles length (no evidence of damage that I can see on the tentacles) led me to think that these are clones, not anemone that got caught up in PH.

Thanks Nemboy1. Can you account for pairs of these anemone that have been cut? 2 pairs of purples one pair of blue? Another blue and a green not cut?

I know that you are trying to get anemones to see if you can breed them. I got to feel cheated for you. Good luck with them. I hope that they all survived.

 

[psusocr]

IMO i would lean towards a damaged anemone( caught in powerhead or somethign else) it just doesnt look like a typical "cut anemone" mine looked alot like that when its corner got sucked in the overflow and once when it got sucked in the powerhead..

 

[nemoboy1]

First off, there will be lots of opinions and that is great.

I personally didn't slice them or see them being damaged by a pump/propeller so this is why I wanted to start this thread.

The video and pix doesn't do any justice but it gives you some sort of evidence of a cut/damage nem/nems.

There are 3 purple that are healed with tentacles starting to grow back and covering the gap. 1 purple as shown in photo hasn't healed the cut looks to be fresh likely a week or so old. The yellow and 1 blue looks to have some scar that I can tell and healed fully but the mouth isn't In the center... One side needs to grow more tentacles. I wish I have an assistant to help me take better photos but I don't. Sorry

I don't believe these were cut by a LFS but rather by the supplier/wholeseller...

On one note this is what the supplier reply when they were ask if the nems were sliced... It may will have happen as all nem can split but they would give a definite answer.

Btw I was told these came from Bali.

 

[D-Nak]

Until I see a gig that's been cut in half, I won't believe it's possible. The photos and videos don't show any conclusive evidence IMO. I wouldn't go so far to say that someone even intentially cut these, nor are they clones (this implies that you have half of a gig) just because there is phyiscal damage or what appear to be cuts on the oral disk. I would expect to see scarring on the foot as well if scarring occurred on the disk.

What I can tell you is that IME, healthy gigs can heal quickly and don't show ANY scar tissue. My gig has been chewed up by an MP40 twice and I can't see any evidence of it occurring. The dead tissue sloughed off, and the disk began to grow back, then tentacles started to form. But it never "reconnected" itself, it grew from the wound out, not circling back around (if that makes sense).

Based on this, to me the photos appear to be that of damaged gigs that aren't healthy enough to heal quickly. I've seen other species of nems with tissue necrosis, and it looks very similar, where the wound is "pushed" out.

I still wonder how this occurred. There are many possibilities, such as someone along the chain of custody tried to cut the disk but chickened out and didn't cut all the way through.

 

[D-Nak]

Just thought of something... if I were to guess what happened, I think someone may have cut the oral disk all the way to mouth, in hopes that the gig would split on its own.

 

[nemoboy1]

Believe me D-nak I know what your saying. Without hard evidence like two halves makes it hard to convince the jurors... But sometimes even without a body along with strong evidence that I am seeing in front of me leads me to believe the crime has been committed. I would understand if only 1 was damage but to have scars from foot to mouth not just on one but multiple nems leans me towards a conviction. But I have them physically on hand and not a photo/video.
I hesitated to start this thread but with further observations lead me towards my findings/theory thus this thread is started...

 

[biodegraded]

The only input I have is that clones will be the same sex and it reduces the chances of getting at least one of each which was the point of getting so many individuals in the first place.

edit: assuming the same color animals you have are clones, but you have, what, four different colors?

 

[psusocr]

Until I see a gig that's been cut in half, I won't believe it's possible. .

I agree 100% , theres been a million claims but noone has any evidence or proof.. sort of like bigfoot.. We can assume things happen from our observations which is totally fine but without actually knowing the verdict will always be out.. in this case since it has never been done before( or at least documented) i would have to assume that it was another form of inury, not an actual propogation..

Nonetheless good luck with the nems! hopefully they color up and grow big and healthy

 

[D-Nak]

Believe me D-nak I know what your saying. Without hard evidence like two halves makes it hard to convince the jurors... But sometimes even without a body along with strong evidence that I am seeing in front of me leads me to believe the crime has been committed. I would understand if only 1 was damage but to have scars from foot to mouth not just on one but multiple nems leans me towards a conviction. But I have them physically on hand and not a photo/video.
I hesitated to start this thread but with further observations lead me towards my findings/theory thus this thread is started...

I completely understand. Using your analogy, if I was a juror, I may be the cause of a hung jury. However, I watched the videos again -- this time on my laptop instead of my iPad -- and I do see where you're getting your theory. There definitely appear to be cut marks from base to disk (on my iPad I could only see the disk area). But as I previously mentioned, when an anemone heals, the wound smoothes out, so it could appear to have been cut.

I applaud what you're doing and I know it took consideration before posting because you'd have quite a few doubters. If you keep posting and updating though, you may not only convince me of your theory, but also others who are convinced splitting a gig is not possible.

 

[D-Nak]

I agree 100% , theres been a million claims but noone has any evidence or proof.. sort of like bigfoot.. We can assume things happen from our observations which is totally fine but without actually knowing the verdict will always be out.. in this case since it has never been done before( or at least documented) i would have to assume that it was another form of inury, not an actual propogation..

Nonetheless good luck with the nems! hopefully they color up and grow big and healthy

+1. Regardless of how it happened, I hope they fully recover and you're able to breed them. That would be very exciting.

 

[worm5406]

What is the difference between males and females?

Can you see one easily? Or are they not shipped?

 

[D-Nak]

What is the difference between males and females?

Can you see one easily? Or are they not shipped?

To the best of our knowledge, there are no physical differences between male and female -- not that can be used as consistent markers. The reality is that we don't now much about their reproduction. One reputable source reported a female giving birth to live young, but she suspected that the proper food wasn't available to get the babies through meta.

The following is anecdotal and based on what I've read/seen:

1. Females may have dark spots near where the disk meets the foot that may indicate eggs.

2. Males have been known to spawn, spewing out a white discharge. If this is true, then I know that I have a male since mine stress spawned when I was moving it from my previous owner's tank to mine. The problem with statement #1 above is that my gig also has these dark spots.

 

[nemoboy1]

To the best of our knowledge, there are no physical differences between male and female -- not that can be used as consistent markers. The reality is that we don't now much about their reproduction. One reputable source reported a female giving birth to live young, but she suspected that the proper food wasn't available to get the babies through meta.

The following is anecdotal and based on what I've read/seen:

1. Females may have dark spots near where the disk meets the foot that may indicate eggs.

2. Males have been known to spawn, spewing out a white discharge. If this is true, then I know that I have a male since mine stress spawned when I was moving it from my previous owner's tank to mine. The problem with statement #1 above is that my gig also has these dark spots.

+1... Male petco gig has the spots and I notice it spewing what looks to be sperm after I put him back into main system from QT.Can they have both sex organs?

 

[worm5406]

I think we need to all get ours together and let them have a sleep over.

Seriously though... I am really curious as to husbandry, not cutting, on these. As those that may have read before, cutting on a Ritteri is a death spiral in about a year.

 

[OrionN]

Gigantea in captivity is rare enough few enough people with more than one Gigantea out there. A reefer with two healthy Gigatnea of opposite sex isn’t out there. I am sure if there I have two opposite sex Gigantea that are healthy, I am likely to observe and able to tell the different between the two.

About Ritteri, My one split several time and I ended up with 4. I think I was the one that first documented split of Magnifica in RC back in 2001 or 2002. I still have this picture somewhere even if RC lost these picture a few upgrades ago.

 

[worm5406]

Can you put them up again, if they are lost in the 1's and 0's?

 

[worm5406]

I know clones are like it say's; clones.

It would be nice to allow it to propagate with the variances as the genes fall.

Not that we would ever be able to support or have the facilities to raise the young, or would we?

We did make the 6 million dollar man.