Stichodactyla gigantea, Brown gigant carpet anemone

[skyrne_isk]

and, i only have fed mysis and raw tilapia fillets. never any silversides - you are asking for trouble going that route. It is still very sticky, and will hold food, but will not eat it. It has been the best eating anemone i have ever owned and has made me think "whatever on earth have made people think this is hard to keep....." now i know.

 

[delphinus]

Yes, I know what exactly what you mean. When all is well they seem bulletproof. When they start to go south there's seemingly no reason or cause so you have no idea what to change in order to encourage a turnaround.

Not eating is a very troubling sign in my opinion. Everytime with this species when it's gotten this point, I eventually would lose the anemone. So I would not let it go too long before I would escalate the feedings by shutting off current, and placing the mysis directly onto the mouth. If the mouth doesn't open on its own accord I might try pushing a couple in (gently of course) to see if a feeding response could somehow be stimulated/triggered.

The hard part will be knowing when. It's probably normal if it's stressed to not eat for a little while. To me there's always the question of "but will it feed OK tomorrow and I should just wait", and also the "what damage do I risk by force feeding"? I don't know how to suggest how to make that judgment call.

 

[delphinus]

Here's the thread I was talking about with some pictures of the damaged carpet that I wondered was predation. (FWIW..) http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1600920&

 

[skyrne_isk]

There is some mild fraying 1/4" maybe, around the edge of the oral disk. here are some iPhone pics from this afternoon. pulled off a 30% (30 Gal) water change and it is ****ED. checked Mg levels with a new elos kit and it was 1100ppm. so not too terrible - so i dosed to raise it 50ppm. Any thoughts on what it's problem is (if it's something someone has seen before would be much appreciated).

I will definitely be force feeding tomorrow no matter what happens. Going this long without food, considering the shape it is in, is no good.

 

[delphinus]

FWIW, fraying at the edge of the oral disk is exactly how I would describe the damage on mine. To further my suspicion that it was the cowry was no good, when I did finally find where he was hiding out, in was in a hole in the rock right under where the damage was.

Is there anyone in the tank who could be a potential predator? Could there be a cowry in there that you don't know about?

 

[skyrne_isk]

There are two cowries, but I have never seen them anywhere near the anemone (of course that doesn't mean much). It was pretty irritated after the w/c yesterday - will send along a pic of the cowries.

 

[Flighty]

I would think twice about force feeding. I think it can provide a worse situation with a place for bacteria to grow and do more damage. If they stop eating, there may be a good biological reason that we don't want to futz with.

 

[delphinus]

I know, that's why I say I'm hesitant to suggest when/where to make that judgment call. It's a really heavy handed choice either way. FWIW with specimens I tried last year that were badly compromised, it seemed that force feeding did perk them up a little but in the end it may only have prolonged the inevitable. By "force feeding" I mean I just took a couple pieces of mysis and gently pushed them into the mouth, then let the feeding response take over.

However one thing I noticed with that.. these ones that I ended up losing anyhow.. they would try to envelope the food but it would take 20-30 minutes to completely ingest the food anyhow. It was brutal. It's no way to try to limp these things along, because it doesn't matter WHAT you have in the tank, eventually someone will try to steal that food. Why not, when it's being so conveniently held in one place and smelling so darned good? So it's like if you get to this point, you need a tank with NOTHING ELSE in it. And be prepared to shut the current off 100% off during this time too because oh yeah ooops a little bit of current just pulled away that ONE piece of mysis that was only halfway ingested. It's no wonder they didn't pull through, it would take a saint of patience to be able to keep this up for 6 months or whatever it takes.

(Sorry for the little rant BTW. I'm still quite depressed over the losses a year later!!)

 

[skyrne_isk]

Well after trying the force feed, it spit it out, re-inflated and has been fine ever since. Go figure. The only thing I can think of is the blue carpet that was added about a week ago on a whim from Blue Zoo. Ever notice when you try to make a good thing "better" you end up shooting yourself in the foot? Nice to meet you, that's me too. Selling the blue carpet since the multicolor is my long-timer. Tell me though, do the rest of you keep a "mixed" reef with your gigantea? I have it in with quite bit of SPS, am wondering if reduced flow from growth contributed to this as well. I checked my modded maxi-jet and holy smoke! it had some turf type algae grow in the slats and drop flow down to 30%. and do any of you run a bac driven system? I noticed every time the ethanol part was added it would constrict. I noticed this the FIRST time I dosed bac way back in September, but it never reacted since. I recall asking in one of the bac threads about this unexpected response, but no one had it happen to them. Oh well.

 

[Flighty]

Oooo, another gigantea? That would be a problem. More than enough of us have had problems when adding an additional magnifica or giagantea. Those seem to be the only types of anemones it is a problem with but there is some sort of water borne problem (pathogen?) That can take healthy ones down when a new one is added. I have lost a whole system of magnificas starting three days after adding a new magnifica. It took three months for all of them to sucumb (5 anemones upstairs and down in connected tanks, most had been in tanks for 3-7 years)

A long QT period is essential for these anemones to prevent loss of prize specimens is seems.

The pathogen idea is new ground since it had been very rare to have a magnifica or gigantea thrive, only now are people with healthy ones getting together and relaying the stories of truly healthy ones suffering when a new one is introduced.

 

[delphinus]

Interesting.. And ironic in a way since a QT tank is usually just a simple setup, but we also don't suggest a new tank for these specimens; so it's like you need a full fledged mature reef tank with no livestock on the go, so that you can properly QT a new arrival before introducing into another system where there may be other individual anemones.

It may not even be pathogenic in its nature though - it could just be that because we deal with closed systems instead of the ocean and its "instant dilution" - whatever defensive mechanism is shed by the dying individual stays resident in the water column and thus able to affect others well past the point the actual source may be long gone from the system.

(Total conjecture on my part - but - does have an element of plausibility - I think back to one time I moved my magnifica from one tank to another - this anemone had a history of killing off all fish in a tank if the tank was moved - but I thought it would be OK if I moved it into a tank with no fish. But I was wrong. I removed the anemone from one tank, moved it to the new tank, and within half hour of removal, two of the four fish in the tank it came out of were dead. It was the mere act of handling the anemone that released something toxic to fish. My guess was nematocysts which then clogged their gills and they then suffocated - although it could have been a kind of toxin as well, I'll never really know. But it shows that just because an anemone is no longer in the tank, doesn't mean that it can't still affect the other livestock in the system.)

 

[hansonfam]

We'll that is great reading
Although i am now a little concerned as i have a well adjusted Gig that i have had in the system for 5months and never had a problem with. Has the typical "Shag carpet" look to it and is colouring up from a brown to a almost brown,green and purple tentacles...Eats we'll and has grown probably 3-4 inches since i have had it.
Here is the not so great part...i added a baby purple gig 3 days ago. It is about 2 inches across. Closed mouth,super sticky and its mouth has been closed since i got it. Tentacles are getting longer by the day and he attached immedietly and hasn't moved.

Now i am a little worried that this could kill my other one???

Tony you had 2 in a system right?

Do i just need to keep an eye out for it going down hill and remove it right away at the first sign or???

 

[delphinus]

I did. Although they were not together in the same tank for the first year or so.

Since they're already together I would keep an eye on things for now. Moving just seems to add to the stress so I would only do it if I felt it was really necessary.

Maybe to be safe, run lots of carbon and change it out more frequently than you might otherwise under normal circumstances, just in case.

On a side note where on earth do you keep finding them? I've been asking around for some but the only ones to have come in lately have been these enormous things. Man, I miss out on everything.

 

[hansonfam]

Okay we'll hopefully we will be okay...I will just add lots of carbon.I will be sooo ticked if it kills the other one
I was thinking the little one looked sooo healthy that i couldn't pass it up!!

I will send you a pm on the other site as to where i got it!!

 

[Ron Popeil]

perhaps this doesnt apply to strictly s. gigantae, but ive noticed that in my tank with multiple magnificas, one specimen always seems to out do the rest.

ive never understood why, since of the three that i have, they all experience the same conditions. they all are fed at the same time and the same amounts. however, one has always seemed to thrive over the other two. thicker tentacles, more rigid structure, larger size. the other two are healthy and show no signs of decline, but just dont seem to swell up like the main magnifica. ive begun to consider that the anemone itself is doing something to inhibit the competition, regardless of the fact they are all the same species.

perhaps that could be something to consider when new anemones dont do well in tanks with surviving same species anemones.

 

[delphinus]

FWIW I had the two of mine alongside together and both grew quite significantly .. until one of them started to decline. I now think it was cowry damage. It would have a melted side, then it would heal, but it would always shrink a little in the process ..then a month later it would happen again. It happened 3 or 4 times about a month apart each and the last time it just stopped eating. So maybe having 2 together when one was stressed wasn't great but under normal circumstances it was fine, they even overlapped quite a bit. They were side by side for over two years.

 

[Rod Buehler]

Mysterious creatures..

All of mine are on common systems sharing the same sump and at times even been im the same tank. (shrug)..

Right now on the same system
H crispa in a 40 cube next to a..
S. gigantea in a 40 cube ( old brown one) next to a
H. mag (purple foot), in a 40 cube, next to a
big H. mag( yellow tip) in a 40 breeder sharing a tank with an..
S. helinthus, until I can find a home for it).. next to a..
S. hadoni in a 10' trough that sits below
numerous BTA,s scattered through (5) 15 gal tanks.

Ohh.. Aptasia and mejano too

On the otherside of the room a big H mag shares a system with the purple gigantea. This system used to have some of the other anemone tanks before a re-vamp 6-7 months ago.

(Most anemones can be seen here http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1603392 )

I have always been a big believer in carbon and against ozone, but because I am too busy (lazy) to change out the carbon, I have been playing with ozone for the last few months. I have never played with any antibiotics or medications so i cant comment on their effectiveness.

I did have one loss of an S. gig that I picked up from an LFS that was a gonner before I picked it up . Bleached, gaping, etc.. It was on one of my main systems, but I dont think that either of my other giganteas were tied to that system at the time.

I dunno if this helps (shrug).. just sharing..