Regarding communicable disease in anemones. I had two bad experiences with 2 sick anemones died after adding to the DT with healthy anemones of the same species. The healthy anemone then developed the same (by my observation) and died within 2 weeks.
The first case involved Haddoni carpets. I got a green carpet for years. Added a blue MO carpet. Despise providing optimal conditions, it inflated and deflated and died. The green healthy carpet follow suit and died 10 days or so later.
The second case involved H. magnifica. I got two Magnifica doing great. One over 2 years and on for about 8 months. Both doing very well and growing in a 100 g cube that set up just for them. I added a very beautiful newly arrive Magnifica to this tank. It inflated and deflated and died in 1 weeks. Withing 14 days both of my healthy anemones died after inflated and deflated cycles.
My thought is that the sick anemone carry the pathogen. Inflating and deflating are attempts but the anemones to get these pathogen out of their body. In the confined of our tank, these pathogen are dumped out into the water and got taken in my the well anemone. While this does not happen every time, getting exposed to a very high concentration of pathogen can cause the disease. How communicable these diseases are will depends on the inoculation dose and the virulent factor of the pathogen.
This is a very reasonable explanation of why my healthy anemone died in my case. Unfortunately, I do not have the resource to test this hypothesis, nor the inclination to prove this by loosing a few more healthy captive anemones. I have decided to set up full fetch reef tank as quarantine tank for new anemones. I have amassed a collection of difficult to keep anemones and not willing to loose them when I can do something to prevent it.
Regarding treating newly imported anemones with antibiotic, I think that one of the many causes of newly imported Magnifica and Gigantea death is bacterial infection. At least the end stage, the horrible smell is decaying of anemone tissue by the bacterial. This will not be the only cause of all the death but it seem that these two species are much more susceptible than other species.
I have a thread trying to treat these anemones with antibiotic. Se far I treated two. One did great when I got him from the LFS in fair shape, then he decline. As soon as I notice the decline, I took him out of QT and treat him in the hospital tank. After week treatment, somewhat under-dose (under the dose I now think needed) but he did great and recovered. He is doing fine now after 4 weeks under my care and is in my tank in display tank.
The other anemone, I talk the LFS let me treat for them. It was in too bad of a shape when I got it. It was falling off the glass, all deflated. It lived almost 1 week with treatment but died in the end. (10/16-10/22) Treatment documented in the thread link below. I would welcome any discussion in that thread. BTW, since started that thread, I have learned that the antibiotic I choose, ciprofloxacin is photo degradable. The photo-degradation it the major elimination pathway of this antibiotic in treatment tank (I use full light in treatment tank) and have altered the treatment protocol accordingly. I will continue to treat any sick anemone that I can get and will try to treat at many as I can while document it on that thread.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2220652
