My blue gigantea ... I think it's a keeper!

Jamie1210

Active member
Just wanted to post pics of my blue gig. It has been in my tank for 1 month now, so far so good. Has NEVER deflated, and has NEVER moved from the spot I put it down in. Strangely, the pics make it seem a bit bleached, but it's a darker blue in person ... either way, still needs some work on coloring up, but it is definitely taking food. (I feed it very sparingly ... I think only 2x's so far since I've gotten it)

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I think I went through about 5 or 6 of them until I finally got this one--each time, the gig would look decent in the LFS, only for them to go through the inflate/deflate cycle as soon as I got it home. Honestly, I did not do anything special w/this one--I really think it's luck of the draw to find a healthy one to begin with.
 
Looks good. Tentacle length looks good, and color (in terms of zooxanthellae population) looks equally good. How much flow are you giving it?
 
It's beautiful! I wish you good luck with it. Please keep us posted on how it does.

Are you sure it's a gigantea? The underside looks like a mertensii...
 
It's beautiful! I wish you good luck with it. Please keep us posted on how it does.

Are you sure it's a gigantea? The underside looks like a mertensii...

Definitely a gigantea. The spots on the underside of a mertensii are orange or sometimes magenta and usually go all the way down to the foot, becoming more like stripes the farther they go down. The spots on a gigantea are purple/blue and usually are only present under the oral disk (don't extend to the column or foot).

I will post a pic when I get home.
 
Does that surprise you? I'm not one bit shocked by that statement. Mortality rate of these guys is probably close to 90%.

That's awful. I really wish they'd quit collecting wild anemones that have a low survival rate in captivity--unless it's for people who are trying to find a way to propagate them.
 
That's awful. I really wish they'd quit collecting wild anemones that have a low survival rate in captivity--unless it's for people who are trying to find a way to propagate them.

There are a few things going on here.

1. I've talked to a few exporters and they say that gigantea are more plentiful than haddoni, so people keep collecting them

2. I don't know of anyone actively researching gigantea propagation. These cannot be propagated via cutting/splitting. FWIW, I know that I have a boy gigantea, anyone have a girl? :smokin:

3. Some LFS are getting smarter and are not bringing gigantea into their stores, due to the high mortality rate. However, some are willing to take the chance since the profit margin on the colorful ones is high. So, if we stop asking for them, maybe it'll have a trickle down effect.

But, the reality is, since they seem to be plentiful in the wild, people will still collect them.
 
I'm on my second Gig. It looked healthy in the store, and hasn't deflated yet. I've only had it a week. I'm out of town right now, which makes me extremely nervous. We'll see.
 
How do you know it's a boy, D-Nak?

Because when I picked him up he got a little nervous and "stressed spawned". I had to quickly acclimate him since the water in the bag was cloudly. I moved him into a cooler to drip acclimate, and he continued to spawn. Looked like white, billowing smoke.
 
Sorry, I am a little late with the pics and the thread has gone a different direction at this point. But here are two pics of merten's carpets. The first with magenta spots and the another with orange spots. In both the color turns to a red/orange as it gets towards the foot.
This is a baby clown not a giant anemone. :)
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This is a 24" anemone. Notice how weak the column is compared to gigantea and haddoni
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How long have you had yours D-Nak?

Going on three weeks now. I just posted a photo in the gig thread:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=20027640#post20027640

As I mentioned in the other thread, the previous owner had it for over a year, and didn't know what kind of anemone it was when he put it up for sale. I was hoping for a more colorful gig -- like a green or purple or blue one -- but this is my second gig. I had a purple one that died after about a month of me trying to acclimate it. I quickly learned that a healthy gig is far better than a sick, nice-colored gig.
 
I quickly learned that a healthy gig is far better than a sick, nice-colored gig.

I agree. Knowing their low survival rate, I wonder how many gigs the average person goes through before they get a healthy one? :confused:
 
I agree. Knowing their low survival rate, I wonder how many gigs the average person goes through before they get a healthy one? :confused:

I think the problem is that the average person doesn't know what a healthy gig looks like. Granted, we've seen photos and YouTube videos of healthy, established gigs, but the key is being able to determine the health of one that's landed at the LFS.

I'm guessing that ALL gigs that come in are sick, just at varying degrees of illness. Some just happen to pull through. The reason I say this is because of all the gigs I've seen come into my local fish stores, they all had an even, pastel color -- not even a hint of the brown that signals a healthy zooxanthellae population. Tentacle length was short, so short that some LFS were guessing that the anemones they received were haddoni, until inspection of the underside of the oral disk revealed distinct verrucae.

The problem is that they are sticky, had adhered to a surface, and may have even been eating. So, one could assume that they are healthy. Fast forward three weeks and we have a gig that's inflating/deflating frequently and then melts away.

So, to answer your question, I think it's the luck of the draw. One person may get lucky and take home their first gig and it pulls though. Another person may go through at least one, after learning the telltale signs of a sick one and passing on those (I've done this a few times already, despite the temptation), or another person may go through 6, 7, or a dozen -- depending on their determination -- before purchasing one that actually survives.

Just think though, 10-15 years ago, people didn't know how to take care of RBTAs and they were hundreds of $$$$. Now people recommend them as great "starter" anemones. I'm hoping we'll learn enough about gigantea husbandry that we can either breed them, or find an effective acclimation/quarantine process using meds to treat internal infection or other ailments brought about by the collection process.
 
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Just think though, 10-15 years ago, people didn't know how to take care of RBTAs and they were hundreds of $$$$. Now people recommend them as great "starter" anemones. I'm hoping we'll learn enough about gigantea husbandry that we can either breed them, or find an effective acclimation/quarantine process using meds to treat internal infection or other ailments brought about by the collection process.

While I agree that our knowledge of anemone care and our technology has come a long way in the last 10-15 years, I can't agree with your example. RBTAs are way more expensive now (2 -10x more) than they were 10-15 years ago and BTAs were pretty easy for anyone who had a modicum of knowledge about reef animal care. Now, if you want to go back 30 years, you can say the people generally didn't have much anemone knowledge and there weren't many people keeping them successfully, but even RTBAs were under $60 with most anemones in general being under $30.

Sorry for being picky, but things written on forums have a way of getting repeated and all of a sudden become people's reality. Happens in politics a lot too. :)
 
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