Gigantea - where are the zooxanthellae?

[elegance coral]

Looks like a mertensii to me...

...does, and a beautiful one at that! E.C., can you describe the column and or post pix?

I wish it was a mertensii. It is a gigantea though.

It has blueish/purple verrucae on the upper collumn.
No markings or real coloration on the lower collumn.
Tentacles wiggle when flow is low.
Tentacles are bluish/purple. I've never seen a mertensii in any color but brown or brown with light colored markings.

I'll see if I can get a pic of the underside when the lights come on.

 

[elegance coral]

 

[OrionN]

Here are two of my S. gigantea. The first picture is a new arrival to the tank. It is partialy bleached while the second picture is one I consider adapted to my tank and is doing great.

 

[BonsaiNut]

I wish it was a mertensii. It is a gigantea though.

It has blueish/purple verrucae on the upper collumn.
No markings or real coloration on the lower collumn.
Tentacles wiggle when flow is low.
Tentacles are bluish/purple. I've never seen a mertensii in any color but brown or brown with light colored markings.

I'll see if I can get a pic of the underside when the lights come on.

Any photos of the column?

 

[skyrne_isk]

elegance those accent pigments are insane. if you can color that baby up, wow. just, wow.

to respond to some of the earlier posts, photo shock can't be a good idea.....so I always start them off on the sand under an overhang and let them come out into the light. IME, as long as you have SOME brown-ish color anywhere in the tissue you are still in the ballgame. But you'll need lots of feeding to offset the lack of carbs/sugars that the zoo aren't there to produce.

my $.02

 

[marc price]

I wish it was a mertensii. It is a gigantea though.

It has blueish/purple verrucae on the upper collumn.
No markings or real coloration on the lower collumn.
Tentacles wiggle when flow is low.
Tentacles are bluish/purple. I've never seen a mertensii in any color but brown or brown with light colored markings.

I'll see if I can get a pic of the underside when the lights come on.

The closely packed short outer and long inner tentacles plus what looks like allot of folds look make it look like a mertens but not in pix to follow. Iirc, I think Shu had a blueish of purplish mertens, but yes that would be a exception, most i've seen are gray-brownish/yellow-green tentacle tips.

 

[elegance coral]

Any photos of the column?

No. I can't really get a pic of the column without uprooting it.

elegance those accent pigments are insane. if you can color that baby up, wow. just, wow.

Thanks. I'm trying. I'm soaking its food in vitamins and amino acids, so hopefully it will color up nicely.

The closely packed short outer and long inner tentacles plus what looks like allot of folds look make it look like a mertens but not in pix to follow.

It did kinda look mertensii-ish in the first pic. It even looked oval, or elongated in stead of round. I guess these are the things that make anemone ID difficult when all you have to go by is one pic. The wiggling tentacles really nails it as gigantea, but I can't capture that in a photo.

Iirc, I think Shu had a blueish of purplish mertens, but yes that would be a exception, most i've seen are gray-brownish/yellow-green tentacle tips.

That's why I stopped short of saying there were no colored mertensii's. Just that I have not seen one. Do you think Shu has pic's of her colored mertensii in her tank thread?

 

[elegance coral]

oooh la la i just love seeing these things.

elegance, given the precarious zoo position... what are you going to do with it re: lighting? blast / slowly acclimate? please give us some details on how you're going to try to get the zooxanthellae back.

Just to update on what I've done. I noticed that the zooxanthellae are returning faster in the areas that are more exposed to the light. Like the higher areas of the anemone and the peaks of the folds. I dropped the lights a good 6 to 8 inches to give the anemone more light. Well see how it goes over the next few days. I'm still feeding pretty heave every morning. It's feeding response has improved, and it's getting very sticky.:beer:

 

[BonsaiNut]

I wish it was a mertensii. It is a gigantea though.

It has blueish/purple verrucae on the upper collumn.
No markings or real coloration on the lower collumn.
Tentacles wiggle when flow is low.
Tentacles are bluish/purple. I've never seen a mertensii in any color but brown or brown with light colored markings.

I'll see if I can get a pic of the underside when the lights come on.

After seeing the 2nd series of photos, I agree it is looking a lot like gigantea.
However don't be confused by what you are looking for. In the case of mertensii you really need to see the entire column, especially the foot. Wiggling tentacles and color are not good indicators (I have seen S. haddonis, S. gigantea and S. mertensii all wiggle tentacles in low flow, and I am pretty certain we have yet to see all the anemone color morphs that exist in the wild). What led me to initially suspect a different species was the dramatic difference in length between the inner and outer tentacles, the tight folds in the oral disk, the spotted tentacles, and the sand-hugging position. However any anemone can act and look strange when first introduced into a new environment - as you pointed out Some giganteae have vibrantly colored verrucae, some do not - especially if they are bleached. Same with mertensii.

I still wish I could see the foot Some more photos once it is established will be great. Regardless it is an amazing looking critter!

 

[jonnybravo22]

this was a great reread. someone posted asking about it so thought i'd give it a bump.

any updates on the nem pictured?

i got a gigantea and have been nursing the zooxanthellae back. i have a separate thread about it so i wont repost all the pictures here, but the info from this thread was very helpful. elegance -- like you i noticed the brown come in first at the top of the folds closest to the light. it then spread. the pics document it pretty well i think! you can really see how it goes from transparent to white to brown. pretty cool. the nem is doing well! it's also the first gigantea to be kept under the latest high power LEDs

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1809346

 

[CoralsAddiction]

Gigantea - where are the zooxanthellae?

This was a great thread with tons of useful info about lighting acclimation. Some of the more recent threads focus on treating gigs with medications...in most cases to no avail. They still die. Yes. Gigs are hard animals to acclimate to captivity and slow light acclimation won't solve the problem. But it shouldn't be understated.
PS...I revived three old threads today...TBT...?

 

[clorox]

This was a great thread with tons of useful info about lighting acclimation. Some of the more recent threads focus on treating gigs with medications...in most cases to no avail. They still die. Yes. Gigs are hard animals to acclimate to captivity and slow light acclimation won't solve the problem. But it shouldn't be understated.
PS...I revived three old threads today...TBT...?

Good job reviving it I had missed this one and it's a very interesting informative read.

 

[Colorfulreefaqu]

Good read. Didn't know a lot of that.

 

[raythepilot]

Well since you bumped this up, I just want to comment that the information about what causes the color variation in gigs may be inaccurate. There may be various kinds of algae in the nem, which account for the color. If you go over here I explain what is pretty much accepted:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=23148761&postcount=1
Here is a technical paper.
http://www.biolbull.org/content/218/3/237.long
If someone can send me a few tentacles from a gig I can check it out.

 

[OrionN]

Ray,
The paper:
Distribution Patterns of Zoochlorellae and Zooxanthellae Hosted by Two Pacific Northeast Anemones, Anthopleura elegantissima and A. xanthogrammica
I think you over generalized. The paper go into two types of algae in two specific pacific coast anemone species. One of which account to the general green color of these two species.
You generalized this into coloration of S. gigantea. Do you have any references as to this is true, or any of your observation that this is true?
It have been well know that most the colorful coloration of anemones, clams and anemones are from proteins in their tissue. In order to claim this is not true you need to prove that it is not, you need to show that your version is true.

Just from one paper which show the general green coloration of two Pacific coast anemones species is due to Zoochlorellae does not prove that all the coloration of multiple anemones are from symbiotic micro organism.

I think you conclusion from reading this article may be inaccurate.

 

[raythepilot]

Ray,
The paper:
Distribution Patterns of Zoochlorellae and Zooxanthellae Hosted by Two Pacific Northeast Anemones, Anthopleura elegantissima and A. xanthogrammica
I think you over generalized. The paper go into two types of algae in two specific pacific coast anemone species. One of which account to the general green color of these two species.
You generalized this into coloration of S. gigantea. Do you have any references as to this is true, or any of your observation that this is true?
It have been well know that most the colorful coloration of anemones, clams and anemones are from proteins in their tissue. In order to claim this is not true you need to prove that it is not, you need to show that your version is true.

Just from one paper which show the general green coloration of two Pacific coast anemones species is due to Zoochlorellae does not prove that all the coloration of multiple anemones are from symbiotic micro organism.

I think you conclusion from reading this article may be inaccurate.

You are correct, one paper does not prove this but I have also reported from my own microscopic observations of Entacmaea quadricolor that this tropical species has the same color duality.

It is very easy to prove. Someone just has to snip off a tentacle or two from a gig and look a it under a microscope and publish the photos.

BTW do you have any references for the protein theory (I mean scientifically from direct evidence).

 

[OrionN]

There are plenty scientific evidences and papers of where the bright colors from corals, anemones and clams come from. Please do a search and read about them if you want to know. I do not have the time to go do a search and point them out to you.

You misunderstood my post. If we look at the species of anemones in the article we talk about, these anemones have a green cast to them because the symbiotic Zoochlorellae in them is green in color. You generalized this to all the other colors of other various anemones as coloration of the symbiotic micro organism in them.
IMO, your interpretation of the paper is unwarranted.

 

[OrionN]

About 10 years ago Danna Riddle wrote several feature articles on coloration of corals in Advanced Aquarist. In it he goes in dept regarding coloration of corals. He reference and exhausted list of scientific and aquarium literature. It was very informative and very interesting when I read it then. You may want to look it up and read it.

 

[raythepilot]

About 10 years ago Danna Riddle wrote several feature articles on coloration of corals in Advanced Aquarist. In it he goes in dept regarding coloration of corals. He reference and exhausted list of scientific and aquarium literature. It was very informative and very interesting when I read it then. You may want to look it up and read it.

As you correctly pointed out, I must be an idiot. I didn't know we were talking about corals.
You are absolutely correct, coral coloration is not associated with zoochlorella. In fact I do not know of any papers demonstrating that corals have zoochlorella.
I cannot find any information on coloration of anemone that disagrees with what I say. You have to understand that you are dealing with someone who doesn't know as much as you so you have to give some leeway. Can you please pass on any scientific references that demonstrate from direct observations (not hearsay) that the color in anemone (order Actiniaria) is from protein. I'll believe it if I see it but right now I know what I can see with my eyes.

 

[OrionN]

You are so sarcastic. Not much fun to discuss thing with someone like you.
Here are two articles that I come up with after a brief search (less than 2 mins)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10852900

http://www.researchgate.net/publica...he_Mediterranean_Sea_during_a_bleaching_event