My new Green Gigantea

[OrionN]

Yesterday, I received a new Green Gigantea (and a Magnifca) from another reefer in Indiana. Smallish Green Gigantea that have been in captivity for several years. It is one that got chew up by PH twice and still live to tell about it. I was told that he move a lot when first arrival into a tank.
On arrival the anemone was very well pack, insulated and have heat packs, still the water was cold. He looks good however. I took a picture with my cell phone as soon as I got him into my tank.
I have been getting too many anemone of late and have run out of quarantine set up. He have been in captivity and healthy for years so I just put him directly into my DT with my Brown/yellow Gigantea. below are the pictures. He have sky blue foot, very beautiful but not a lot of veracuae under side. Green mouth with green tentacles

On arrival 1/16/2013

Today 1/17/2013

Today underside 1/17/2013

 

[Slickcg33]

Beautiful. I want a green one too!

 

[Reef1589]

Thereeee it is, bout time sheesh, was wondering when this was gonna be posted, im just glad i found a green one immediatly after you bought this one

best of luck with it minh

and its weird, in my green one as well, the verracue count is really low, almost like they arent there or not that colored in... hrm strange both our greens are like that..

another quick question, how sticky is the green one compared to your others?
my green one is by far the stickiest, and most aggressive out of my 6... almost sticky aggressive as if it was a haddoni ha

 

[nemoboy1]

Thereeee it is, bout time sheesh, was wondering when this was gonna be posted, im just glad i found a green one immediatly after you bought this one

best of luck with it minh

and its weird, in my green one as well, the verracue count is really low, almost like they arent there or not that colored in... hrm strange both our greens are like that..

another quick question, how sticky is the green one compared to your others?
my green one is by far the stickiest, and most aggressive out of my 6... almost sticky aggressive as if it was a haddoni ha

My green gigs are sticky very sticky with a mean kick (sting) to it too.
My green gigs verracue shows up nicely and deep purple.

Btw Orion remember my blue gig I posted here awhile back but didn't make it... His verracue wasn't noticeable either. This is why I wasn't 100% sure it was gig.

 

[OrionN]

My green one was send attached to a shell so I did not have to touch him very much at all. My hand did not touch him even once. He does stick to rock really tight but so far no damage to tentacles.
Have not try to feed either of the two anemones. So far he looks great, not moving fromn where I put him at all. (finger crossed and knocking on my dest as soon as I finish typing this)

 

[OrionN]

Looking good today

1/18/2013

1/18/2013 with my clown, Female Onyx. The lighter color patch on her back is where the tang got her while she is defending her eggs. The tang got bite mark on his body and torn tail fin. Her wound was deep. She healed fine after 2 weeks but she got the short end of the stick on that encounter

 

[OrionN]

DP. darn server...

 

[OrionN]

Feed him, the Green gigantea, and the Orange Magnifca each a small piece of salmon. They both eat it very quickly. Both are on the small side, but have been in captivity for quite a while. I guess the previous owner did not feed them much. This is not a criticism. If we want the anemone to stay small, just don't feed them. They both super healthy IMO, and I am happy to get them. I think I will update the Magnifica thread here also rather than get two threads going.

 

[OrionN]

I fed them again this AM. They both eat very quickly.
Post meal pictures. Green Gigantea

Magnifica. I am not sure if I can call it orange. As it inflated back to near it's preshipment size, the orange color fade quite a bit. Will see how he turn out

 

[DrDNA]

Very nice, Minh!

 

[aandfsoccr04]

Another beautiful nem! How many does this bring you up to now? I've lost track.

 

[jhaimes]

Beautiful green carpet!!! I want one so bad but I really am scared to death I will wake up one morning with half a fish hanging out of his mouth...That is the only reason I can see for me not to have one! I would surely tear up a bit if my trigger or an anthia became an expensive meal...How much luck do all of you have with your beautiful specimens?

 

[OrionN]

I have not lost any fish to my Gigantea yet. I lost several fish to my Haddoni. These happen in 2 type of circumstance. One is when I fist add a fish into a tank and it is been chase by another one. Lost a CCB like this. Run right inot the Haddoni. I lost a Powder blue tang when I am moving a tank. I keep everybody in a holding tank and in the stress, the PBT run right into the Haddoni.
Wen moving or adding a fish into ta tank, it is best to put something (a basket) over the Haddoni to keep fish from running into him.
Mostly I keep Haddoni in a species tank with clowns. The times that I keep haddoni in larger tank, I usually don't have very many fish in it.

Magnifica, LTA, Gigantea are much less of a fish eatter but can capture fish. BTA, Malu and Crispa is not capable of killing fish IME/IMHO.

 

[jhaimes]

Oh nice...So would a nice green gigantea be a safe bet in my 225? Would it host a pair of Maroons? I am very nervous about losing fish...I had all but given up and decided on a BTA but your pics of those carpets always look fantastic! What to do...

 

[OrionN]

My Magnifica is getting better and better but I am not able to get a good picture of him, so you guys and gals just going to hav eto trust me on that.

My Gigantea is also getting better and better with longer tentacles. He is shadowed by my Yellow/Brown gigantea. Here are pictures of the Green and the Yellow Giganteas today

 

[jhaimes]

awesome pictures! I am very jealous!

 

[OrionN]

Oh nice...So would a nice green gigantea be a safe bet in my 225? Would it host a pair of Maroons? I am very nervous about losing fish...I had all but given up and decided on a BTA but your pics of those carpets always look fantastic! What to do...

Thanks.
I think a Gigantea in a reef would be fine, if you are up to it. They are a difficult anemone to get healthy and a difficult one to keep. I don't think anybody report them eating fish except one person that I know off. This was a case of tank move. He put everything in a small container and the tang got caught and kill by the Gigantea. There are a lot of reports that Haddoni eating fish.

IMHO, there got to be around one hundred of Haddoni in captivity for every one or two Gigantea, so the anecdotal reports of fish eating may be quite skewed. I can get Haddoni anytime, but it take me near 10 years before I got a healthy Gigantea. With clear effective antibiotic treatment course, I think it is going to be much easier to get Giganea from now on.

I would not put a Maroon pair in a reef. Maroon, IMO, requires species tank. Natural host for Maroon are BTA. If you like Maroon, I would highly recommend a species tank with the Maroon and BTA.

 

[OrionN]

My Green Gigantea is holding his space own against a larger Gigantea

 

[JHawlz9989]

I can get Haddoni anytime, but it take me near 10 years before I got a healthy Gigantea. With clear effective antibiotic treatment course, I think it is going to be much easier to get Giganea from now

Minh,

Do you think with the accumulation of evidence and success with antibiotics so far, that the best practice should include a quarantine with medicine from now on?

Josh

 

[OrionN]

I think quarantine is essential. In this case I did not quarantine because I have run out of quarantine space, plus this anemone has been in captivity for years and is doing well. I will always quarantine newly import anemone. It can go in a full reef tank but If I value my healthy anemone, I will not put a newly import anemone into that system.

Antibiotic or not is depends on if the anemone is sick. If I think it is sick, I will initiate antibiotic treatment, the sooner the better.

Antibiotics are miracle drugs but I know that there is a point of no return; I think this is when it starts to slough necrotic tissue. In a treatment tank with air stone, it bubble start to accumulate on the surface (evidence of protein/complex molecules release from the anemone) the infection is not reversible (especially if there are clumps of tissue start to float in the water). When anemone gets to this point, the damage is too much to overcome. If you follow my thread on Antibiotic treatment for sick Magnifica, my fail treatment (brown Magnifica), bacterial is essentially completely suppressed, evidence by the fact that the dead anemone does not even smell but the anemone eventually died. It was somewhat intact, not smell, but dead nevertheless.

From the little information we have on various thread here on RC lately on using Cipro and Levaquin to treat sick anemone, I think I can tentative conclude that they are effective, especially use early to treat sick anemone (the deadly deflate and inflate spiraling cycle of newly import anemones that us anemone keeper knows so well)