new gigantea feeding questions

D

DrDNA

New member
Hi all,

I picked up a gigantea carpet anemone a couple days ago. It looked healthy when I got it, it was the healthiest one at my LFS I have seen in several months, it was expanded, tentacles were wiggling, and it had been taking food. Now that I have it my tank, how long should I wait to try to feed it, and what would you all recommend for food (mysis, silverside, cyclopeeze, etc)?

Here are a couple of pics of it under T5s. The 250w 14K halides aren't on in these pics yet. My pair of percs had already found it, this pair has previously spawned in my tank when hosting a LTA.

There is a lot of flow in the spot it is in, though it varies in intensity during the day depending on which returns and powerheads are on. These pics were taken under the lower flow.

119205carpet_1.JPG

119205carpet_2.JPG
 
I haven't fed silversides in ages. My anemones never really took to them anyhow (it's funny how they seem to have preferences).

My gigantea's are fed mainly mysis, but, I see them catch cyclops-eeze and flake food and more or less anything that I feed the fish that the fish don't eat.

I would wait a couple days on the feeding just to make sure it's good and settled, but, once you notice it eating for you anyhow, then you know it's fairly safe to start feeding it normally.

Good luck!
 
Nice find DrDNA! Not sure if it is the actinics or the camera but it looks slightly bleached.

How much flow are you pushing in that tank? Seems like you definately have enough lighting though.

Like everyone else said, I would wait for a couple of days until you try feeding. I would avoid silversides since I have heard multiple horror stories of Giganteas dying or coming close to death because they took a "bad silverside in."

Good luck!
 
I think I will stay away from the silversides. I do have a pack of PE mysis in the freezer, so I may try target feeding some of those in another day or so.

As for flow, I have a tunze wavebox and two 6100 streams that alternate every six hours to reverse direction in the tank. my rock is in the center of the tank so the water so the water can swirl around it clockwise or ccw. Also, the two returns from the sump (iwaki rlt40 pump) have penductors on them which create good turbulence against the tunzes.

I am well aware of the sensitivity of this species, so I am definitely keeping my fingers crossed and hope it does okay. does anyone know how long it takes before you know if it is going to make it, i.e. a couple weeks?

55semireef - I am prettysure it is somewhat bleached. From what I understand (maybe mistakenly so...), the carpets that are yellowish are usually green ones that are bleached somewhat. When all the lights are on, it appears a yellowish-green color.
 
It seems to me that if they let go, they let go within the first couple of weeks to a month.

With both of mine I fully expected the worst (I had no reason to suspect that I would be any luckier than most with this species, you hear of so many horror stories). But, I bought them anyhow because not buying them assures of not having one, so to speak (which might be a little like saying, you can't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket). So, after week 1 I was like "Hey, I made it a week!" Then after two weeks, "Hey I made it to two weeks!" Then after a month or so I was reasonably certain I was in the clear, they were eating, they were looking settled, the colour was getting better, the tentacles were getting longer and they were growing. It's been three years for my brown and two for my green.

Lots of water movement, copious really, copious amount of water movement, good air exchange, strong skimming .. good lighting, and a hope for the best.

Good luck!
 
I am also not a fan of silversides.

I feed mine a frozen product that was developed mostly for clowns. I dont specifically feed the anemone, but I feed the tank heavily enough that my anemones get some every day. Shrimp, squid, scallop, oyster, ocean perch, clam, krill, brine, mysis, golden pearls, oyster eggs, un-roasted sea vegetables(red and green), frozen red plankton, fish eggs, Selco (super concentrated selcon), and garlic.

Beside what Tony said, something else that I think is beneficial to an anemone settling in is to have clowns. I know that many here recommend letting an anemone settle in before adding clowns, and if the anemone is very small, or the clowns are super aggressive, I would agree, but otherwise (like in a case of gigantea's and percs), I believe that the relationship helps them both settle in quicker.

Good luck
 
Thanks again guys for all your advice. I redirected more flow towards it and it seems to like it even better. I did get it to eat some mysis today! My pair of percs has also taken to it. I think in one of Sprung's books he too recommended keeping gigantea with some percs for better success.

My LFS had this anemone for about a week and a half and they had gotten it to eat. I have been looking for a gigantea for a few months and this is the first one I have seen that looked healthy enough to try. The other problem I ran into while searching is that most LFS folks can't tell haddoni and gigantea apart... when I was asking about gigantea's they usually would say something like "yeah those are the big blue ones, the green ones are a different species..". ugh. So, you really need to check them out in person.
 
Here are a couple new pics from today. It is expanded more and seems to have found a spot on the rockwork where it is happy. Hopefully it makes it, it is a lot nicer in person than my lousy picture taking skills show. :)

119205carpet_3.JPG


119205carpet_4.JPG
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10632562#post10632562 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by delphinus
My gigantea's are fed mainly mysis, but, I see them catch cyclops-eeze and flake food and more or less anything that I feed the fish that the fish don't eat.
Click to expand...
same here.
Silversides are a good food for really large and hungry haddoni :D
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10641157#post10641157 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Gary Majchrzak
same here.
Silversides are a good food for really large and hungry haddoni :D
Click to expand...
If they are not to busy trying to catch your prized fish as it is. :D
 
DrDNA,
You did a nice job of picking a healthy anemone. The density and length of the tentacles is outstanding for a new anemone.

Good luck, you have made a great start.
 
Thanks Phil. I have gotten it to eat mysis two days in a row, it ate well this AM too. I think it also tried to subsequently eat my clownfish too. Hopefully I have appropriate water flow around it, it changes during the course of the day since my flow direction reverses every six hours. The tentacles are constantly being moved by the water and its oral disk lifts up sometimes and sways side to side some when the wavebox is on.

I am hoping for the best with this one, considering how delicate they are initially.


PS - sorry to hear about your Merten's, saw the rest of the thread on your merten's fragging experiment.
 
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