Gigantea

[delphinus]

Picked up this guy this week. It's from the same wholesale shipment that saw gigantea's pop up all over the country up here (in 10 years in the hobby it's the first time I've ever seen gigantea's available in this kind of quantity north of 49).

I'm a little concerned about the lack of zooxanthellae, but hopefully it will darken up in time. My first gigantea was similarly white but had browned out within a month, here's hoping history can repeat itself.

 

[E.J. Coral]

You Canadians are on fire lately! Usually when ther are a bunch showing up across the country, there are a #$it ton here in L.A. .... but I went to 6 Los Angeles LFSs today, and only saw one gigantea ... it was yellow and on its last legs .... only $40, but i passed. Good luck in this critical time.

Is there a "fingers crossed" smilie?

 

[Titus77]

Too bad blue is not a healthy color! :lol:

 

[elegance coral]

That is a beautiful anemone. The DD had one just like it, but it only lasted about five minutes before someone bought it.

Is it eating? If so, I wouldn't worry to much about the bleaching. It looks healthy other than that, but I'm sure you knew that already.

 

[Der_Iron_Chef]

How big is it, Tony?

 

[delphinus]

It's sitting about 8" across right now, but with multiple folds. It could be more like 10" if it were to lay flat.

Haven't gotten a strong feeding response yet. It did sort of react a little when I fed it some different things tonight but I didn't really see it swallow. I'm going to the grocery store tomorrow and pick up some prawn and see how that goes..

 

[delphinus]

Day 6 update. Still not really a strong feeding response as yet, but has eaten small pieces of cut prawn when it was gently placed right on the mouth. Did notice the tentacles seem to be getting sticky, seems to be expanding a little more, although the mouth is not as tightly closed in today's pictures as it was on Saturday. I'm leery about overdoing the feeding but at the same time the sheer white colour kind of worries me too - where is it getting its energy from? Hopefully the prawn will help.

End-to-end diameter seems to be sitting at 8" but given that it's sort of potato-chipping itself in shape, I think if you took a measuring tape and followed along the contours it would measure closer to 12".

 

[GSMguy]

at first i was envious of all your giganteas but over time i am becoming consumed with jealousy and every new Gigantea thread makes me sick to my stomach....

i want one sooooooo BAD.

the baby blue is very nice.

 

[Doni]

BEAUTIFUL!!!

 

[taylor t]

This weekend will make it 4 weeks for mine. I've noticed mine opens it's mouth when it wants food. I give it either Rods chuncks or a couple halves of silversides. I've been feeding it every day, or every other day. Once I feed it the mouth stays tight the rest of the day. I've finally worked up to 12 hours of 2x130 watt pc and 5 hours of 150 MH (1x10k, 1x20k). I mess with the flow every couple days. The one I have doesn't like flow too high, as it turns into a tight ball when I do that. I can't believe the amount of flow shown on those videos! Mine won't tolerate anything close to those videos. I tried for a few days. Moderate flow, it opens like a dinner plate. It inflates to the point of looking transparent through the disk, like it's under pressure. It has enough flow to push into the disk to deform it slightly and make all the tenticles flow like the wind. What has worked for me may not work for you.
I thought feeding that often wasn't good, but the one I have looks better every day. It's starting to turn a brown/pink flesh color on the disk, but the camera won't pick it up yet.
This is just my experience. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, but it's working well for me. My sebae and haddoni are happy I've turned their lights back on... a month later...

 

[E.J. Coral]

I may be incorrect, but I believe that delphinus has successfully kept giganteas for a number of years ..... he is probably doing something right.

But you bring up an interesting point that has has always bothered me about the conditions that I keep my gigantea in: all of the videos that I see of this species in the wild are in lower flow enviornments! Having never have been diving, I am not sure whether this is an artifact of photographer discretion, or a genuine difference between reqiurements in the ocean and in our aquaria. Thereare several examples in the below page.


http://www.oceanfootage.com/oceans/...word_sorter=and&keywords=purple+anemone&Go=Go

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12771361#post12771361 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by taylor t
This weekend will make it 4 weeks for mine. I've noticed mine opens it's mouth when it wants food. I give it either Rods chuncks or a couple halves of silversides. I've been feeding it every day, or every other day. Once I feed it the mouth stays tight the rest of the day. I've finally worked up to 12 hours of 2x130 watt pc and 5 hours of 150 MH (1x10k, 1x20k). I mess with the flow every couple days. The one I have doesn't like flow too high, as it turns into a tight ball when I do that. I can't believe the amount of flow shown on those videos! Mine won't tolerate anything close to those videos. I tried for a few days. Moderate flow, it opens like a dinner plate. It inflates to the point of looking transparent through the disk, like it's under pressure. It has enough flow to push into the disk to deform it slightly and make all the tenticles flow like the wind. What has worked for me may not work for you.
I thought feeding that often wasn't good, but the one I have looks better every day. It's starting to turn a brown/pink flesh color on the disk, but the camera won't pick it up yet.
This is just my experience. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, but it's working well for me. My sebae and haddoni are happy I've turned their lights back on... a month later...

 

[Slakker]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12749436#post12749436 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Titus77
Too bad blue is not a healthy color! :lol:

Pigment coloration is not related to an anemones health Gigantea's will stay blue even after zooxanthellae returns, it will just be a darker blue.

 

[taylor t]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12771671#post12771671 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by E.J. Coral
I may be incorrect, but I believe that delphinus has successfully kept giganteas for a number of years ..... he is probably doing something right.

I totally understand that. I'm not worthy to even test his water, I'm sure. I was simply offering my experience with the bleached blue gigantea I have. I thought, maybe any other experiences with them may help. I figured, maybe they were all collected in the same area, and like similar things, and if someone finds something out, why not share?
I meant no offense, just trying to help. Sorry. I didn't mean to imply he wasn't doing something right. I meant it's working for me, nothing more implied.

Delphinus, nice carpets by the way! Thanks for sharing.

 

[a4twenty]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12771671#post12771671 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by E.J. Coral
But you bring up an interesting point that has has always bothered me about the conditions that I keep my gigantea in: all of the videos that I see of this species in the wild are in lower flow enviornments!

this is something i have been wondering about too. i have only had mine 3 weeks but for the first few i chased him around trying to get him the flow he "needed". well he just kept moving, only a little bit but always to a calmer area. i have given up with the flow, he knows where it is if he wants more

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12769984#post12769984 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by delphinus
I'm leery about overdoing the feeding but at the same time the sheer white colour kind of worries me too - where is it getting its energy from?

mine is still white too ( they are from the same batch, for those that don't know ) and he has been under 10K ( Burns more like 13k - 14K ) 400W halides.


glad to hear he is eating and getting his stickiness back.

 

[delphinus]

Dude, I am not worthy to test my own water let alone someone else's, no worries man!!

I do have 2 others, one since 2004 and one since 2005. I'm sorry that I hold out on pictures of them but it is because the tank they are in does not photograph well. It's very shallow so a side-view only shows what's up against that glass, and a top-view, although is the best way to view the carpets in this tank, doesn't work for a photograph because all you end up with a photo of is a reflection of the halide on the water surface. I am hoping to upgrade this tank in the next few months so hopefully it will be easier to share photos.

I agree that observing, and tailoring your approach based on what you see, is probably best. This anemone did look a little rough for wear on day 2. It went into the tank fully expanded but by morning had deflated a fair bit. I thought, oh geez, here we go, that didn't take long. But I adjusted the flow that there was more localized flow and within hours it started to perk up. So in my case upping the flow was called for, but in your case it sounds like subduing the flow was indeed called for. I think this species can handle a lot of flow, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to show that, but I'm not really sure what constitutes "minimum" flow. I take the view that there should be enough flow to ensure a decent O2 saturation in the water, and to prevent any kind of slime or detritus buildup on the anemone - anything like that should be "blown off" by the current. This tends to be a higher flow than average, but this might not necessarily translate to a deterministic "gph" value. (I'm not sure if I'm making any sense here..)

 

[delphinus]

I would love to see this species in its natural environment.... that would be so awesome to see.

Thanks for the link, E.J., there are some neat videos on that page. Did you see the size of the purple gigantea?? Man alive!! Wicked!!

 

[E.J. Coral]

My animal seems to love MASSSIVE flow. In both tanks that I have hat it in, it recieved intermittent blasts of 3000gph. It hasn't moved one inch in either system.

One thing that I noticed is that my anemone builds up a lot of slime on its underside. Both the clowns and these surges often clean it off.

 

[Reefvette]

Gigantea

My larger older gigante moved 6 inchs since i got it. It now sits directly in the crossfire of the pumps swishing it around.


I just got another that is acclimating. Im going to take some nite time pics tonight.

 

[delphinus]

Day 14 now, and a new addition too.

Shortly after the last few pictures were taken (the day 6 batch), he crawled up the rockwork. He's found a spot he really seems to dig, there's sort of a horizontal crevasse that his foot is wedged into. The downside is, well ... a picture will show why I'm not really crazy about the spot he's chosen. But been a week now in this spot, both anemones don't seem to mind the occasional contact.

Monday night I had a bit of a scare, he did this in the evening:

Stayed that way until morning, after that he's opened up bigger than ever though, so hopefully it was just passing waste. Generally, deflation is not normal though, but it's only been the once so far, so hopefully this is a one-off.

Tuesday night:

Now .. if someone had told me two weeks ago that I would have found this, I would never have believed it. I found this little gem hidden in a LFS on the weekend:

A purple carpet has been on my covet list for a lonnnnnnnng time, something like 10 years. So I did what any self-respecting addict would have done, I took him home. :lol:

We'll see how things go. Hopefully they do well. There were two purples in the shipment, the other had already perished. This one was not looking that happy in the tank but I suspect on account of its small size and the number of clowns in the tank vying with each other for territory, that it was getting beat up a little. It has perked up a little since coming home, so hopefully that trend continues. It's only been 4 days so really anything can happen at this point.

Here's a picture of all 3:

Crazy huh? I'm almost embarrassed to show the tank it's so full of anemone now.


I'll finish off with some videos. Hope you enjoy.

You can see the ritteri does occasionally reach down to see if the carpet is there. However there doesn't appear to be any negative consequence so far. It's clear I have to make some long-term planning decisions soon - like, sell something or get a bigger tank for the lagoonal frag tank I was thinking of.

 

[Theomi]

Pretty