Minh's Purple S. gigantea

This afternoon 8/27/2012

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Looking good. I also have a S. Gig. It looks kinda like yours but might be a little lighter in color. Had it under a 20K bulb but seemed to lighten up in color. When back to the 14k bulb that the color shifted more towards the yellow side. I think he likes it. I notice at times when I would add supplements especially Alk boost his mouth would open. But then would close up after a day. Could this be the problem with yours. Just a thought.
 
I noticed that you still haven't put on the foam cover on the MP10. Put it on! I know you'd hate to have your gig chopped up. My gig just got caught up in my MP40 AGAIN. I had it covered with the foam guard and it still managed to get in. I lost two fish in the process. Fortunately everything else made it. I'll try to take a few photos and will post in the gig thread.
 
I am home looking at him every few hrs. He hardly ever move at all. When I go out of town, even for the weekend, I put it on but otherwise I leave it off. If he start moving a little I will put it on.
 
Man, because I envy gig threads, I've been paying close attention to yours. You're doing a fantastic job caring for this nem. I'm hoping to do the same soon. Awesome!
 
5 weeks in my tank yesterday.
There is an area on my anemone that the tentacles got denuded, damage when he was transfer from the LFS to the bucket bringing he home 5 weeks ago. Stubs formed right away when he lost these tentacles, but did not grow much for the first 3+ weeks. Only in the last week or two when these stubs lengthen and almost caught up with the rest of the tentacles around it. I am very optimistic that he will survive.

I am so optimistic that this weekend, I will built a stand for the 100 g cube that I will eventually move him into it. I think I will light it with a LED fixture and maybe use two MP40 for circulation. Maybe I can get away with just one. I am not sure if I want spend a lot of money for the light. All the lighting modes and dimmers of a Radeon does not seem to be needed. I may just get a bright fixture with on/off switch and none of these fancy "storm mode" and slowly increase in intensity (this is needed I think but not for 400 dollars for this mode which is the only one that I will use). Wider spectrum of the Radeon maybe of great benefit also. I will have to do extensive research before decide on the light.
 
Minh, can u explain the reasons why you increased your temp so high? 85 seems a bit high imo.
 
Tony,

If my memory serve me right, Rod keep his Gigantea at 86 and stated several times that if his system temperature drop to below 84 his two Gigantea's are a little off. I think one of his two Gigantea's is the longest keep Gigantea that I know. It is going on near 20 years now I think (at least 15)

Initially last month, with the light and temp of my house, the tank peak out at 83 a few hrs after the light come on, so I keep the heater on at 83.

When the anemone did not do well, one of the thing I did was to increase the temperature to 84 for 2 days then increased it to 85. This did not adversely affect the anemone or the tank so I keep it at that temperature at this time.

One of these day, once the anemone is stable and healthy again, I will do an experiment on system temperature and try my best to observe the affect it have on my Gigantea. I will post it here hope to add on the knowledge on how to keep these animal. I will think about this and will post what I will do and what sort of result I come up with. I am sure it will not be cut and dry. Hope I will minimize all variability other than the temperature. I just wish I have more than one Gigantea so the sample size can be a little larger.
 
Minh, thanks for the reply i am familiar with rods gigs. But the observations have me thinking that stressed gigs may fair better in a warmer aquarium 84 range compared to 78-80.
 
I think good information on ideal temperature for certain animal we keep is minimal to nonexistent out there.

Information from Rod and a few other Gig keepers also lead me to thinks that Gigantea do better at temperature that is higher than normal temperature we keep our reef.

Many years ago there were a raging debates on optimal reef temperature which is really meaningless because all the other variables. It end up with useless "....I keep my reef at this temperature and it does better than your's...." type of statements.

I read a lot of there debates way back to the reefkeeping mailing list in the mid and late 90's but not able to come up with any meaningful conclusion other than aquarium can do OK up to the mid 80's degree. At least 85 if the temperature increases slowly.

I hope to give at least some information, however minor, about my experience in the not too distance future. I will have to do plenty water test, water changes with the same salt, and plenty pictures. I will also observe and mention other animals and fish in addition to the anemone.
 
Almost 6 weeks in my tank. The anemone is doing well. The mouth is small, fleshy but not tight . The mouth is not tight until about 1 cm deep. Right at the surface it is about 1 cm2 area that is open. I have not fed it for the last few weeks, other than food it caught that was mean for the fish. It is growing and the tentacles are longer. The ones near the mouth are about 1 inch long while those near the peripheral are near .75 inch long. The anemone is growing and is larger that before and very stiff in holding himself against the current from the MP10 which run on reef-crest mode at about 80%.

The two baby Picasso are doing well fed twice a day in AM and again in PM. I have a Mandarin and a Marine Betta in the tank also. Both are actively hunting for pods and mysis on the glass, sand and rock. On top of the fine sand, I pit about 1-2 inches layer of shells collected from the shore of the Corpus Christi bay. Most of these are broken shell from shell fish, and a lot of bivalve shells. They are around .75-1 cm in size. IME, these provide refuge for the pods and mysis and acts as a very large refugium in the tank.

I have 5 larger snails in the tank, three" Mexican Turbo" with babies and two "Astrea" snails(from my other tanks) These snails are well over 2 years old. I also put in a number of baby "Turbo", "Stomatella" and "Strobus" snails that I caught from my other tanks. (I have no idea that the name I know these snails as are accurate or not). The Stomatella have spawned once and I start to see the eggs from the Strombus snails on the glass and rock. I also have a number of tiny snails that seem to be baby "Mexican Turbo". These are still too small, less than 1 mm so it is hard to tell if they are baby Turbo or not.

I got all kinds of Macroalgae before I tried to remove them as completely as I can from the tank. I see some small pieces here and there but they are not doing very well due to? low nutrients. Coralline algae started to grow well in the low light area of the tank and can clearly seen at night when I look at the tank with flash light.

Two pictures from this AM FTS with flash and the other without flash

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PurGigan20120901.01NoFlash.jpeg
 

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As you can see, the anemone is quite stiff and handle the high flow from the MP10 well. I feel that Vortech is best use if there are two one on each end of the tank. This particular tank is really too small for two so I just have one. I really like the flow created by the these circulation pumps.
This is the first time I upload a video. I just take one with my phone and posted without viewing it first. I think I will take better video and posted it later.
 
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