S. gigantea zoo transplant?

[skyrne_isk]

Is there any published literature or anecdotal evidence that zooanthellae can be transplanted from one anemone to another of the same species? I ask this question because I am trying it and I want to know what the facts are out there on this. I have two carpets, giganteas.....that are settled in now for about 6 weeks. See this thread:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1678386

Basically, the blue carpet has gained NO color of any kind. As of right now, I am convinced it is bleached. I know some anemones can go a long time while appearing devoid of zoo, but then color up over time after it turns out there was some zoo still present. The only colors I see (especially at night) are the non-photosynthetic pigments in the end of the tentacles. I may be wrong, but after six weeks and no turn in color - I am ready to call this anemone very much alive, but completely bleached. That would put its odds of long-term survival at zero. I feed it almost every day, yet it has lost ~20% of its size (yes I understand size is a tricky thing on these anemones due to their design).

So my question is about how to take and transplant zoo form the healthy gig I have (the green donor) to the bleached one (the blue recipient).

I can easily get a tentacle or two to detach from the healthy anemone and not feel too worried about bactrial infection or other ill effects. Here's my question: should I use a hypodermic needle to inject the bleached anemone with a tentacle that has had its contents sucked out and extracted to the needle? I would think I could either suck the tentacle using the syringe or I could puree it and load the needle that way. Or should I take a tentacle and feed it to the bleached anemone with its daily meal?

Any ideas on how to take a crack at this would be most appreciated. I have kept carpets for a couple years now successfully, and I have even kept a bleached BTA alive for years when I first started out - I remember feeding it most every day as well. It was almost translucent in color due to its complete lack of zoo......and so is this carpet.

For some reason I am thinking I need to refer back to some texts I have about anemone sexual reproduction and refresh how the zoo is transmitted to anemones' offspring - I think parents imbue the offspring with it, but I can't recall where - if it is in its gut or oral disk.....or somewhere else.

Is this just an idea doomed to failure for the same reasons it would fail in humans without immuno-suppressants?

After six weeks and no improvement in color at all, I am ready to call it bleached. If some of you out there know differently, please chime in. You can check my gallery for pics of a bleached gig that I colored up three or four years ago. I can say that the bleached carpet was never white. Within a couple weeks it was coloring up by losing its translusence. Not seeing that here.

Thanks for any help.

I'll keep my progress posted.

 

[tufacody]

Woa, that's pretty out there. Since zoo can be expelled, I'd also think that they could be ingested as the nem absorbs water. If you could somehow isolate zoo outside of the tissue, I'd think soaking a very porous food in it would be the better option.

 

[skyrne_isk]

Since we know that anemones can eat each other, my thought was that a freshly removed tentacle from my healthy carpet would have viable zoo in it. The tentacle, then wrapped in food, could easily be ingested by my bleached nem. This especially could work with carpets due to their small tentacle size. Also, since they are the same species, I am pretty sure I am good on having the same species of zoo (I don't know how many zoo species there are - but believe there to be many).

What I don't know is if the recipient can make use of this zoo or incorporate it into its tissue without them being destroyed during the digestion proces.

 

[sugartooth]

I don't know about the zoox process, but I would imagine proteins and enzymes are involved. Not completely understanding exactly what the process of bleaching is would be hard to know what is the best way to try to do this (I mean myself....not understanding).

My guess is that if there is a component missing in the bleached carpet (an enzyme or protein that is not functional), then transplant may not help unless the chain of biochemical processes is performing properly and only missing zoox.

Did you try shielding it from light using some eggcrate? I've done that with 3 'bleached' carpets and they have recovered after 2-3 weeks of shield.

Good luck!

 

[sugartooth]

Edit: The recovery I saw with my carpets was not a full recovery in 2-3 weeks. What I meant with that statement was that there was substantial improvement after that time that indicated to me that it would make a full recovery.

 

[tufacody]

I'd also add iodine.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

you've tackled this problem (bleached gigantea) in the past? I don't know what you did before but I'd keep the bleached gig in the same aquarium as the green one and very close to it.
Feed both anemones color enhancing foods- Cyclopeeze and spectrum pellets are good choices. I would not necessarily shield either anemone from any light and (in fact) I might "overexpose" the whole aquarium in order to induce the expulsion of zooxanthellae in reef animals.
I would not dose Iodine.
JMO.

 

[sugartooth]

Gary, not sure if you were directing your question to me or the thread starter?

From my experience, bleaching if combined with a shortened tentacle, clenched look responded to eggcrate over the tank. Once that was in place, I saw tentacles elongate. Over the period of a few days you can see improvement in body color go from translucent to 'grayish' tan as well as elongation of tentacles.

I think it's usually best to look at the entire situation instead of just one observation (in this case bleaching). I believe these nems have 'body language' as well.

 

[skyrne_isk]

+1 on the body language. These carpets definitely stretch out their tentacles when settled and happy. I have that going on with both of them....but the lack of coloring up in the blue/purple carpet leads me to think it totally devoid of zoo. Maybe a more biology-conversant can chime in about whether that is possible.

I am correct that the bright pigments in the tentacles have nothing to do with zoo, right?

and Gary, yes I brought one back from being bleached...in my gallery is a before and after shot of a yellow multicolor. Even though it was bleached when I bought it, there was still a light yellow color to it. This guy arrived a light purple, almost white. You can see in the other linked thread pics of its condition within hours of arrival. I am just thinking back to the bleached yellow I brought back (these new carpets are in the same system) and I seem to recall SOME coloration increasing after putting under halides maybe within 2-3 weeks.

Right now my 4 x 54W T5s run for 12 hours..thinking I am running a GE daylight, ATI blue plus and aquablue special with a giesseman 03 actinic. My halide is a 400W reeflux 12K and runs for 8. I can bump up the halide to 10 hours...

Is the idea to cause a pollination of sorts? I was under the impression that zoo couldn't do that, especially from scleractinia to actinarians.

I have been feeding selcon enriched krill, mysis, and tilapia. I do have some frozen cyclopeeze I could mix in. No doubt good nutritional value in its food will help.

 

[WDLV]

I would allow them to share the same water. There are hundreds of different strains of zooanthellae. If you have an existing anemone that has a winning combination of zooanthellae in its tissues, the same strain may work on another specamin.
The anemone will absorb this naturally. If it is a strain that works well for the anemone, it will not be expelled and instead be allowed to populate. If conditions change in terms of lighting, it will expel the zooanthellae if there is too much light. If there it too little light it can grow another strain that is less light demanding or allow the existing strain to populate. *I think this is why clones of the same anemone turn darker and lighter when placed in different systems. While equally healthy, they have simply adapted to differing conditions.
If you have a variety of corals in the system, the odds of it finding a strain that is agreeable to it will increase.
I would also keep your temps down. If the heat is too high, the metabolism of the animal and the algae will increase. If this gets so high that the zoanthellae produces toxins faster than the anemone can process or export them it will expell the zooanthellae in an attempt to expel the toxins....
At least that's the way I have come to understand this interaction.


On the tentacle extension arguement, I agree... with one added note. If the tentacles are extended it is usually an indication that the anemone is trying to maximize surface area to get the zooanthellae to grow/produce food. If it shrivels up, it is trying to slow the metabolism of the zooanthellae. When this is the case you will want to keep a close eye on it as this behavior can be a precurser to zooanthellae expulsion and/or anemone death.

 

[skyrne_isk]

Thanks for the input, Walt - wasn't aware that sharing water would be sufficient conditions to allow zoo to pass from one animal to another. I had thought that animals were donated zoo from their parents (when sexually produced) and that if completely bleached they had no capacity to re-absorb it. Bringing animals back from a bleached condition, I had thought, was due to sufficient conditions that allow the low populations to reproduce and darken the colors.

Here is a shot of them hours after being added:

And another shot of the blue/carpet last week:

I don't know how well the pictures show it, but the purple hue has totally been lost and all I am left with are blue pigments in the tips of the tentacles while everything else remains white.

The system is definitely full of other photosynthetic corals - SPS, polyps, LPS, clams and of course another carpet from the exact same patch of the ocean that has a full compliment of zoo. In general, most of my SPS tend to have more brown than most since I am not running ULNS, so if what you say is correct, then it will only be a matter of time.

And to answer an earlier issue - coloring up this carpet happened under the same source water, deeper tank, same food, and for the most part the same nieghbors as the carpets currently kept (though they are in a new tank).

I have some more pics if helpful, but it seems to me that this blue carpet doesn't have much (if any) zoo, and I am concerned that daily feedings can only help it along for so long. Being at the 5-6 week mark, I don't feel confident it will pick up zoo on its own. Disagree?

 

[WDLV]

Something that I recall reading on the GARF site years back was that they did an experiment with corals that had lost their zoanthellae. I believe that it was sarcophytons. What they found was that by fragging another sarcophyton in the same system that the recovery period seemed to increase for the bleached specamin. Frankly I wouldn't advise intentionally injuring a gigantea in hopes of saving another. They're sensitive as it is. If death is on the horizon for the bleached one I would not want to see you loose both. Also, I have to question whether keeping them in such close proximity is a great idea. One of the things anemones can do as a last ditch effort is expel gastric juices and other toxins to nuke their neighbors. In a closed system, this can end quite badly.
Oh, BTW, I would keep the food particles as small as possible to maximize surface area for digestion. I think you need time and this might help extend that time.
That said, I wish you the best of luck with them.

 

[skyrne_isk]

I have NO DOUBT that negative interactions were occuring between the two in my system when they were originally added to my tank in the same area......

and this is not some temporary deflated state. Over a day or two, the green one began to almost completely shadow the purple. They have since been moved to opposite ends of the tank and the purple opened up tremendously within a day or so of being moved.

Believe me, I have considered that going too far to save one may see me end up with none. I won't push it that hard.

I can say that on several occasions, feeding the green carpet with tweezers ended up with a grabbing action so vigorous that it wanted to take the tweezers into its mouth. Being the lab type of tweezers, I have little doubt it would have engulfed them with the food and injured itself as the tweezers possess enough weight to tear itself. Pulling the tweezers away ended up with three or four tentacles still pulled off. I wouldn't say this is no big deal, but I don't consider it a problem....sure it could create sites for bacterial infections....but I doubt it's very likely unless repeated over and over. JMO

 

[tufacody]

Have you conisdered the possibility that the anemone was dyed? It kinda looks like that might be a possibility.

 

[pulpol]

Can a bleached gig still be considered healthy (everything normal except for the color)? Can they survive just as long as a non-bleached gig?

 

[tufacody]

Bleached nems rarely recover, but it is possible.

 

[pulpol]

So if a gig is bleached most likely it's not going to last very long?

 

[tufacody]

Well pul, with the exception of BTA, you have to keep in mind that the vast majority of even seemingly healthy anemones perish in captivity. So, given one that is already unhealthy, the odds aren't very good.

I love this forum, however you have to keep in mind that while many people post about their success with nems, very few post about their failures. You can find several very good threads about people who have nursed back bleached nems, but the fact is, most will fail.

 

[skyrne_isk]

This is what angers me the most - I bought both of these online, had seen WYSIWYG photos of both of them, but when I got the purple one, it was more white than anything. All you can hope for is that there is still some zoo in the tissues in minute quantities that simply can't be seen. Even small amounts of zoo, as my first yellow carpet only had, can be fostered back into health. IME, a completely bleached anemone can have some sort of "life"...but it seems there is an inevitable shrinking of anemone size as it essentially eats itself to keep it alive. So far, I have not noticed any further decreases in size - but you have to reason that keeping an anemone alive by providing energy via a path typically reserved for auxiliary/supplemental nutritional is not sustainable.

But re-culturing of the zoo can be done, as this initial photo of my yellow carpet proves.

turned into this:

and later this (note the tentacle length on this one too):

No changes to lighting, flow, feeding occured during this color change. But I darkening start to occur with maybe two weeks. That I am not seeing that here, is worrying.

And I am almost certain I was not dealing with a dyed anemone - here's on of the WYSIWYG photos (looks blue here but purple elsewhere)

Note the yellow-ish mouth and variability in color.

 

[skyrne_isk]

Last night I fed the purple a couple of tentacles from the green gig. I am going to give the purple a few days of no feedings and see how it looks. A couple days of no feeding should help me gauge how frequently feedings should continue going forward.

I have read many places (wetweb and elsewhere) that feedings more often than weekly are not good for nems....not sure how much I agree with that on its face, but obviously the bleached carpet is a little different scenario. I do know frequent feedings grow these carpets quickly, IME. Any see an issue with daily feedings on the bleached carpet? A day's worth of food would be a normal sized piece of krill and on cube of formula two/angel formula or a krill and a some mysis.