MY blue gig!!

Patrick12 said:
You want really low flow. They do not live anywhere near the surf. I have 2 giganteas and a haddoni....all personally collected....and the dozen or so others I have found are also found in lagoon areas attached to rocks buried in the sand or just above it. None of them are in water deeper than 3-4 feet. You can have great flow in the tank.....just make sure none of it is directed at the anemone. So basically, if their tentacles are flapping.....you have too much flow on them and they will definitely move. Once they find a spot where they feel their foot is fairly well protected, mine have not moved much at all. I am amazed at how well they have done. Here in Okinawa, MHs and T5s are something you can really only get if you order them from the states. I have mine in a 20 gallon and a 6 gallon tank with 2x20W T10s and they are doing fabulous. I replace the bulbs every 4 months. I have had them now for 15 months and one has almost outgrown the size I wanted.....I plan to bring them back with me next year.

Nice find and good luck.
Click to expand...

I can't argue with your personal experience, but I would never recommend to anyone here in the states to try to keep S. gigantea under 20W T10's. You yourself state that you collect them in water no deeper than 3'-4' deep, and yet you do not seem to want to provide that degree of light intensity. Likewise, your comment about no water flow - everyone else I have spoken with has said that they are found on reef flats in shallow water (eel grass or algae bed) in fast current. People here in the U.S. that would try to keep 2 carpet anemones in a 20 gallon tank with limited water flow and 20 watts of lighting would soon have 2 dead anemones. Sorry, but it's the truth. I want to make sure that no one reads your post and tries to copy your setup. If you are having success it is certainly the exception, not the rule.
 
I tend to agree with Bonsai on this. Someone recently posted a pic of Australian low tide and there were gigs in tide pools half exposed. My reading indicates that gigs take advanatge of high and low tides to bring them food, and that their natural environment is typically quite chaotic.

With that said, I do think that carpets need gradual acclimation to the "surf". Buying a new one and plopping it in your tank with a massive surge is probably not a good idea. Flow, like light, should be slowly increased until you see positive signs in the animal.
 
http://img696.imageshack.us/i/mvi2039.mp4/

Here's a vid of mine to give you an idea of the flow it seems to like. 2 min on 2 min off on the powerheads. I'd had this one now about a year. Its under a 250 watt 10k halide w/ T5 actinics. This was taken right after lights came on. He swells another 25% or so by early evening.
 
yea ive been looking for and haddoni for ever couldnt find one and saw this guy and couldnt pass him up but heres an update day 2: DISASTER! came home from a ski trip to find the skimmer had pumped about 40 gallons on to the floor put all ro water back inthe tank with salt wich was a horrible idea but i had no choice so rapid salt and temp changes but both nems and everything in tank still look the same so i hope to god I dont wake up in the morning and every thing is dead any impute?
 
Sorry to hear about your bad luck, i had something similar happen to me my skimmer pumped all my water to drain and ATO filled tank with fresh dropping salinity drasticly, live and learn i guess
 
oh and tufacody great looking gig i just re adjusted my flow a little bit but not so it was that chaotic. I m going to let him move to where he wants. Do you think the salinity drop and temp is going to effect his chance of survival?
 
i just slowly added salt, lots of it until i was back where i needed to be, but i dont have anything all that fragile in my system, i would mix it then add it to my sump
 
I would just top off with salt water until salinity restore. I would not add salt to the system to raise salinity. How low is your salinity?
 
Just top-off with salt water. Don't acutely raise the salinity, your are more likely do more harm than good.
 
Living in the lagoon, S. gigantea are exposed to salinity and some temperature change especially with drop in salinity as rain fall. I would not worry too much about it. In nature, some are exposed by lowtide.
 
kellon16 said:
oh and tufacody great looking gig i just re adjusted my flow a little bit but not so it was that chaotic. I m going to let him move to where he wants. Do you think the salinity drop and temp is going to effect his chance of survival?
Click to expand...

Thank you Kellon. I don't think that the salinity drop will necessarily cause its demise so much as the instability. Most people label nems as extremely difficult because it is extremly hard to find a healthy one and get it settled in. But many people will also tell you that once you get past that 1 year mark or so they can be surprisingly durable.

I have definitely noticed that my nems seem to prefer 1.026 salinity. Frankly, I've noticed that everything in my tank does better at full strength salinity. Personally, I think you need to get your tank to at least 1.023 asap and then slowly raise to 1.026 over the course of a few weeks.

If yours is shrunken up but mouth is tight, consider whether it is getting too much light. Mine had very short tentacle extension and was a little shrunk until I raised my light up very high. I notice if the flow is too strong the mouth will gape slightly. I think they need high flow but also equal amounts of rest time, such as a surge would provide.

Once you feel your tank is stable, I would try feeding it a pea-sized chunk of shrimp, fish, scallop, etc. I do notice that the day after a feeding mine will swell up quite a bit. In fact, when it looks a little more shrunk that is when I decide to feed it (about every 10 days). I only recommend feeding once you feel it is stabilized. You will know. Gigantea are very rewarding creatures when they are happy. I can tell just about everything that is going on in my system by the appearance of my gigantea.

I wish you the best. Please let us know how it is doing.
 
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