S. gigantea zoo transplant?

[OrionN]

skyrne_isk,
Please update. I am in the same situation. I got two S. gigantea about 10 days ago. both seem healthy and eating daily for the last 4 days. However, my blue is fine but the tiny green Gigantea (3 inches) is bleached. As soon as I think the blue one is out of the wood, I will try to do just as you do. Transplant some zooanthellae to my bleached anemone. Wish me luck.

 

[BonsaiNut]

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

It's not dyed.

 

[BonsaiNut]

The clam farmers ground up an larger clam to feed a patch of babies to get them to have zooxanthellae. This is essentially the same except that we don't have to ground up an anemone to do it

Yes they grind up a larger clam. No, they do not "feed" it to the smaller clams - they add it to the water. If grinding up clams and anemones in the wild was required for them to have zooxanthellae, all clams and anemones would be bleached I think people are overseeing the obvious - which is that anemones gain zooxanthellae naturally in the wild via the water column. It has also been shown that they will regain zooxanthellae in a closed captive environment via the water column (or else they had a tiny remnant left within their tissues). Either way, this experiment is hoping to ACCELERATE another process. Yes, it is interesting. But no, it is not required.

 

[elegance coral]

I did this several years ago with two LTA's. I had one that was ghostly white. I tried dosing iodine, high light, low light, lots of food, nothing helped. My LFS got in a dark brown LTA, so I figured it was worth a shot. I brought it home and stuck it right under a 250W MH. The next day it started discharging zooxanthellae. I collected the brown slimy stuff and fed it to the bleached anemone along with its regular food. It wasn't long before I started seeing brown spots showing up around the mouth. Several months later it looked almost identical to the donor LTA. I've been trying to talk someone into trying this, on a different site, for about the past year. They've had a bleached BTA for about that long with no signs of zooxanthellae returning. So far I haven't been able to talk them into trying it.
Here's a pic of my two LTA's from about a year ago.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

before introducing the donor anemone

before introducing the donor anemone

were there any other animals in the same aquarium that could have possibly acted as a donor for the bleached LTA?

*is it possible* that if you had simply introduced a second healthy anemone (and not directly fed it zooxanthellae) the bleached anemone would have adopted zooxanthellae via the water column?

 

[elegance coral]

were there any other animals in the same aquarium that could have possibly acted as a donor for the bleached LTA?

There weren't any "likely" candidates as acceptable donors before the second LTA was introduced. There were corals in the tank, but the likelyhood of one of them harboring a clad of zooxanthellae that would be acceptable for the LTA is very slim. I don't think it can be ruled out, though. At least not with our current understanding of this process.

*is it possible* that if you had simply introduced a second healthy anemone (and not directly fed it zooxanthellae) the bleached anemone would have adopted zooxanthellae via the water column?

Yes. It is possible. It leaves alot to chance though. If there is a healthy anemone in a system, we often don't see signs of them discharging zooxanthellae, so we don't know how much, how often, or if, they are discharging healthy zooxanthellae. With most modern host anemone systems, any zooxanthellae released into the water would quickly be removed by the filtration. These factors reduce the odds of a bleached anemone gaining zooxanthellae from the water, even if there is an appropriate donor in the system. We also don't know how much time a bleached anemone has to gain a suitable clad of zooxanthellae before their health reaches the point of no return. Leaving this to chance may require more time than the anemone has. It doesn't rule out the possibilities though. All it takes is one healthy zooxanthellae to repopulate a bleached anemone.

 

[OrionN]

Yes they grind up a larger clam. No, they do not "feed" it to the smaller clams - they add it to the water. ....

They added it in the water, the young calms filter it and eat it... They feed it to the young clams.
I am sure the bleached anemone can take in Zooanthellae from the water column but if I can added a larger amount direct into the bleached anemone, I will. IMO, it cannot hurt, but only help. The only problem is that I would not want to injure the other anemone. I want to make sure it is well before I try to remove a tentacle or two to feed it to the bleached anemone.

 

[OrionN]

I would love an update, still

 

[WDLV]

I attended a Carribean Coral Reef Conservation Symposium Thursday night at the National Zoo in DC. Zoo? I know right???
Anyway they were discussing the efforts that have been going on at the Aquarium in Omaha to asexually reproduce A. palmetta (elkhorn) and staghorn species. They have been quite successful not only in reproducing these guys but also in cryo-preserving them as is done with human embryos. They have grown thousands of them this way. Producing enough to distribute them to eight other aquariums.
Naturally I had to ask since they have been so successful if they had any intention of fragging them and distributing them to hobbyists once they reached a relatively large size. I got a resounding NO. He might as well have had reverb on his voice. The reason given for this was that it was an endangered species. The answer to my next question was also a reason for his rejection of the idea. My next question was whether captive raised corals that had proven their hardiness might be considered for release to regenerate decimated wild reefs. Again I got a resounding NO but this time it was because they have found that the corals we have in our tanks are like Frankenstein's monster in that they have Zooxanthellae that shouldn't be there and they were concerned about the idea of releasing an invasive strain. Another thing that Eric Borneman mentioned was that many of the diseases that occur on the reefs are seldom if ever seen in our tanks and that those in our tanks suffer from maladies seldom if ever seen in nature.
I think there are pros and cons to keeping our tanks the way that we do. While there is the increase of disease that one coral may never have seen there is also Zooxanthellae that might occur on one reef and not another. I always just assumed that all 300 or so strains were found on every reef throughout the world.
While your anemone could have obtained it's new strain from the water column, I still like the idea because the strain your healthy one was using was probably more ideally suited to your sick anemone than another strain might have been.
I know there was a lot of OT stuff in there but I thought you might find it interesting.


Any pictoral updates?

 

[WDLV]

Oh and another thing....
My H.mag was doing the shrinkey shriveley thing. So in an effort to boost it's growth I tied a 10 gallon in and put it in there with a 250W MH cooking over the top. This is my latz tank so it remained at 76F. Within 48 hours the anemone spit out all its zooxanthellae. This is probably a death sentence and its tentacles bleached bright white. I decided not to move it.
I don't know if it's wishful thinking or if it's really happening but I think it's starting to get some new brown in its tentacles.... We'll see.

What I learned was that bleaching is definately related to light. Temperature is likely a separate factor.
My theory? When bleaching is heat related, it is likely related to metabolism exceeding the output of the zooxanthellae. When bleaching is light related (I guess usually a decrease from excessive turbidity) that zooxanthellae is likely unable to keep up with the food demands of the anemone.

 

[skyrne_isk]

Well I thought I would dig this old thread up and give it an update. With respect to the initiative to color up the blue carpet, I would have to call it a success. Take a look for yourself. I am also including a pic of the donor carpet, as both are in the same system and doing well.

Here's the recipient (as of today):

Here's the donor:

I would not hesitate to do this again to another species or to help out another aquarist. The transplant process is a relatively low-risk, high reward strategy to address bleached anemones. I have been feeding (more like once per week) frozen krill and other assorted commercial preparations. As many have mentioned here and elsewhere, the big issue is making that first week or two with these carpets. Most that come in bleached and deflated are likely done for. If the carpet will eat (and I mean complete the feeding process) you have a good shot. Just to note that placing food directly on the mouth after stimulating the tentacles with food can help a weak carpet coordinate its ingestion. The mouth will start to swell and become sticky after placing food in its tentacles and allow for a second food item to placed where it is easier to ingest. I have noted that sometimes these carpets come in with enough vigor to snag food - but not enough strength to finish the process.

 

[Blitzburggirl]

Very interesting... admittedly I started reading this thread because I was stalking you (trying to find the clown thread you referenced in your giga sale thread.) Thank you for such an interesting write up!

 

[skyrne_isk]

Disaster strikes ......details to follow.

 

[Saltwaternooby]

Did it get smashed?:eek1:

 

[skyrne_isk]

Did it get smashed?:eek1:

Worse.:eek2:

I am in the middle of a tank upgrade, so a couple weeks ago, everything got moved into a kiddie pool (that now is setting on my living room floor :bounce1::bounce1: ) that's about 150G. I added a little bit of kalk Wed night since the CA reactor isn't exactly dialed in and the pH went to 8.6 for an hour or so.

I knew it would try to move, it always wants to if I overdose kalk (even when I balance the pH back w vinegar). The green one has always been the one to move, never the others and sure enough when I woke up yesterday morning it had crawled INTO the maxi mod that is being used for circulation. This is incredible since I have pieces of acrylic/glass set up as baffles of sorts to box it in. I have had nems get on the wrong end of a PH, but never this bad. The carpet had both sides get caught....usually it has just been one edge. It had essentially all its tentacles sheared off on around 1/5 of the oral disk. The only thing keeping this carpet alive is that its mouth and foot were untouched.

I have come this far with this carpet, I am going down swinging. For now, it will still eat. I fed it yesterday twice and this morning once. My skimmer had about two ounces of tentacles in it the morning I found it bound up in the pump. It's stomach was everted and it was completely wound into the PH. I unplugged and let it work itself out of it throughout Wed. Fed it Thursday morning a single piece of krill and krill and mysis Thursday night. It had its stomach everted late Thurs night, but may just have been expelling food. Fed it again this morning and again when I came home (small meals, all of them).

Good news is that none of the damage goes through the oral disk, and there are no tears all the way through anything. Bad news is opposite sides are impacted, so it is having a tough time folding the damaged areas inward (which IME is how injured spots are healed).

So for now, it's regular feedings to help provide nourishment and pray for no bacterial/fungal infections. Updated pics from today I will post tonight.

Here's yesterday at this time.

 

[clowns101]

To be honest he looks pretty good for being sucked up.I think given the right conditions he will pull through if done right though.

 

[skyrne_isk]

To be honest he looks pretty good for being sucked up.I think given the right conditions he will pull through if done right though.

Well that's good to hear....at least someone has seen worse. I've never seen a gig take serious physical trauma and make it. Plenty of BTAs and the like, but not carpets. Tonight it is doing the whole swell up huge with water thing, which is certainly something I have noticed they do when stressed pretty good. Also, it definited has spit up what it has been fed.....not sure how much was actually digested (some at least siince it was unrecognizable from the food that went in). Bad news is that there IS a spot where the interior tissues are exposed...maybe a nickel in size on the edge of the oral disk. Hopefully this expansion is part of the healing process and it will go back down to a normal size tomorrow morning. The foot is still attached, which I am thrilled with.

Anyone have any opinion on whether feedings are helpful here or should I let it ride for a couple days? Note that I have removed the clowns from it and they are in another carpet.

 

[skyrne_isk]

Update:

So after the carpet survived being sucked into a maximod 1200 ten months ago, it grew to around 15" before I pulled all my SPS out of the tank to treat for AEFW. During the move, I put ONE maximod 1200 into the tank without gutter gaurd affixed to the intake (this was the fix I implemented after this last little incident of fun) to keep things going while I soaked the two I still have in vinegar.

Wouldn't you know I would come home to find the pump choking on green carpet anemone. So much carpet was shredded the water turned green. This was so bad the mouth got tore up and there was so much tissue sucked into the gaurd that I had to break out some bone shears to cut the gaurd away. I wish I had taken some photos of how completely the carpet clogged the gaurd and pulled it through the slots on the intake, but it wasn't my first thought at the time.

Keeping my fingers crossed. Taking pics by day. I would say half the tissue was lost on a 15" monster.

The damage:

The mouth:

The white areas are where the damage is worst. There appears to be a matrix of tissue underlying the tentacles that is like mesh:

At night about five hours after I caught it:

I will keep posting daily progress shots.

What do you guys think?

 

[skyrne_isk]

A couple more, worse than last time for sure.

 

[WDLV]

Eeeeek! Not good that the mouth was damaged.