The current state of S. gigantea - acclimation and antibiotic treatment

[D-Nak]

I wanted to start a thread where we can pull our notes together regarding the recent surge in gigantea purchases, but also the increase in deaths associated with those purchases. We need to know the protocol used -- what meds, how long, type of environment, including tank size, whether or not a heater was used, etc. Hopefully we can develop a new protocol to try on future acquisitions. I would like to keep this thread specific to S. gigantea only, as I believe that all anemones species vary slightly, and if we are indeed talking about a bacterial infection, these bacteria are species specific.

My thoughts:
Cipro and more recently Septra have, in the recent past -- up to the last six months of so -- aided in the acclimation process of S. gigantea, saving countless anemones from dying. The assumption is that without antibiotic treatment, the anemone would've died.

Most, if not all, recently acquired -- specifically newly imported -- gigs have died even with the use of Cipro and/or Septra. Several hypotheses have been proposed, but the leading hypothesis is that antibiotics have been added somewhere in the supply chain, causing resistant strain(s) of bacteria.

My understanding is that antibiotics have actually been used for quite some time, the most common being Nitrofurazone, which is useful in koi for the treatment of furunculosis. Assuming the gigantea are exposed to antibiotics, and that the bacteria have now become resistant, we need to determine a protocol to successfully kill the bacteria without killing the zooxanthellae population or the anemone itself.

It's also worth noting that coral bleaching has been studied in great detail for many years, and is applicable to anemones because both contain zoox. Aside from environmental causes, one of the causes for bleaching is Vibrio spp. Unfortunately, theres are hundreds of species of Vibrio, and determining which species is infecting S. gigantea -- if any -- would have to be carried out by the scientific community. This is, of course, assuming it is Vibrio.

My questions:

1. Typical treatment for Vibrio is antibiotic therapy (doxycycline or a quinolone). Being that Cipro is a quinolone, have others tried other quinolones, a combination, or simply doxycycline by itself? I've read many posts about its recommended use, just need to know if anyone has tried it.

2. What are the environmental dangers of the use of other quinolones? We know that Cipro breaks down in light, making it a low impact antibiotic. What about others?

3. Has anyone found a research paper discussing the effects of antibiotics on a zoox population? Can it weaken or even kill zoox?

4. Based on my limited amount of research, Vibro seem to favorably respond to higher water temperatures. What would happen if we lowered the temperature in our QT tanks? What is the lowest temperature gigantea can endure without without causing undue stress?

The future:
I'm wondering if we might want to start experimenting with other types of antibiotics, or a combination of antibiotics. As I am not part of the scientific or healthcare-related communities, I cannot lead the charge. I'd be happy to assist in any way possible, aside from lending a healthy gigantea for scientific research (hah!). Again, the goal of this thread is to start a dialogue to help us move forward, I don't want this thread to dread in the past or lay blame on a particular retailer or wholesaler or exporter. We can't stop what they're doing, but we can develop an effective response protocol based on what we assume they are doing. We just need to work together and be prepared for a long journey.

 

[D-Nak]

I also wanted to note the following: it was stated on another thread that one of the online dealers has their own treatment protocol. Here it is:

"Prior to introduction into this specialized system, we medicate every single Gigantea, Magnifica, Haddoni, and Mertensii in Ciprofloxacin for seven consecutive days, at a rate of 250mg/10 gallons with a 100% water change performed every morning. I personally have found this regiment to be the most effective. The medication starts immediately upon arrival into our facility following proper acclimation from overseas exporters, importers, or other suppliers we deal with here in the US. After the 7-day treatment, we house the treated anemones in this dedicated system and continue to quarantine and condition prior to offering them for sale. If any anemone out of the batch is not in optimum health, we start all over again and continue with the protocol at a higher dosage. If the anemone(s) pull through, perfect, if not they are unfortunately destroyed, or perish on their own in different holding tank(s). We typically hold all of the above mentioned anemones for a minimum of 3 weeks total, oftentimes much longer as I want to only offer them if they are in optimum health."

If I'm reading it correctly they have the nems isolated for 7 days undergoing Cipro treatment. After the 7 days, if they appear healthy, they move them into the dedicated system.

What we tell people on the boards is to keep the nem isolated for another 7 days without meds for observation purposes. This gives the nem time to either 1)get sick again if not fully cured or 2) allow them to purge the remaining bacteria so they're not "carriers". What the retailer is doing is going straight from QT into the dedicated system without a period of observation (without antibiotics). This could feasibly create a scenario where what appear to be healthy gigs are infecting other gigs, but no symptoms appear until they arrive at our homes. As I said many times, it can take up to a month for symptoms to become externalized where we can see them. Unfortunately, all of us -- myself included -- have rushed this process and we pay with the death of the nem (this is assuming a bacteria is the cause of death).

The reason I mention this is because it's been proven that Vibrio spp. that infect coral can survive in the water column and move to another host. If we are dealing with Vibrio infecting gigantea, they can easily move from tank to tank especially because nems are essentially balloons full of water. It's been documented many times where sick gigs have gotten other gigs sick.

 

[addictedreefer]

Just to remind everyone that treatment is not always necessary, I have a blue gig going on 4 months that was never treated (despite several deflations early on).

 

[D-Nak]

Just to remind everyone that treatment is not always necessary, I have a blue gig going on 4 months that was never treated (despite several deflations early on).

I agree. There have been quite a few that didn't need any treatment at all. I have a tiny gig that needed no treatment, while the three others I received at the same time all died, even with treatment.

 

[starfishbricks]

"at a rate of 250mg/10 gallons with a 100% water change performed every morning"

This may be the reason why the recent DD gigs haven't been responding to treatment. They do a water change in the morning and add the medication when the light cycle begins. While they have good intentions, they fail to realize that cipro has been shown to degrade rapidly under light which is why in Minh's protocol it says to add it after the lights are out so the anemone has maximum contact with the antibiotic throughout the day. If cipro is added in the morning, it is rapidly degrading throughout the morning/afternoon, dramatically lowering the concentration as the day progresses, and essentially turning it from a low concentration bath to almost nothing by the time lights are out. This is the opposite of what the recommended treatment protocol says to do...

 

[Reefahholic]

I agree D-Nak, we need to develope a new treatment protocol. Not saying the current protocol isn't working, but I believe we can tweak it and make it better.

I've been working on the side of nurses who use multiple antibiotics and see the negatives and positives first hand. My sister is also a nurse. I've got a list of new antibiotics I've been testing the last few weeks. There's a few that have done well, but it's too early for me to see a pattern. I need more time.

Another issue we need to realize is that these infections can be both gram negative & positive. The bacteria can also have a somewhat broad classification as anaerobic, aerobic, or facultative. This is based on the types of reactions they utilize to generate energy for their growth and other activities.

Needless to say, we have a lot more to learn. I hope that in the near future we can save more Gigantea's.

 

[Breadman03]

"at a rate of 250mg/10 gallons with a 100% water change performed every morning"

This may be the reason why the recent DD gigs haven't been responding to treatment. They do a water change in the morning and add the medication when the light cycle begins. While they have good intentions, they fail to realize that cipro has been shown to degrade rapidly under light which is why in Minh's protocol it says to add it after the lights are out so the anemone has maximum contact with the antibiotic throughout the day. If cipro is added in the morning, it is rapidly degrading throughout the morning/afternoon, dramatically lowering the concentration as the day progresses, and essentially turning it from a low concentration bath to almost nothing by the time lights are out. This is the opposite of what the recommended treatment protocol says to do...

You might have a point there.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

I can admit up front that I have no experience treating these nems with antibiotics. My question is, is it or is it not hit or miss treating these nems prophalactically with antibiotics when there is no known diagnosis for what is ailing the anemone? Seems like putting a bandaid on a wound of unknown origin to me. Equating treating an anemone with antibiotics to treating a human with antibiotics seems like quite a stretch to me.

:shrug:

 

[DasCamel]

I can admit up front that I have no experience treating these nems with antibiotics. My question is, is it or is it not hit or miss treating these nems prophalactically with antibiotics when there is no known diagnosis for what is ailing the anemone? Seems like putting a bandaid on a wound of unknown origin to me. Equating treating an anemone with antibiotics to treating a human with antibiotics seems like quite a stretch to me.

:shrug:

If we practiced this way with humans it would be frowned upon. Well some physicians do,but not the point here. Unfortunately we do not yet have a proper diagnostic tool set to properly ID what exactly is causing the Anemone in question to be sick. Until we do, the antibiotics do seem to be effective in increasing the survival rate.

 

[OrionN]

About Cipro been degraded by light, I am not sure how fast these are been destroy by light. How fast depends on how much light. If we dose fully and change water 100%, I don't think the degradation of antibiotic mater too much.
Personally, I also find that daily 100% water change, with additional water change as needed works best. I change water whenever there are particles in the water I cannot suck out (the water is cloudy). Lately I used 500 mg Cipro per 10 gal.

Other antibiotics can be use inclueded trimethoprim/sulfamethxazole at the dose of 160/800 mg per 10 gal. Nitrofurantoin at dose of 100 mg per 10 gal. I would still use 100% water change daily with these two medication. Likely Nitrofurantoin would have more narrow spectrum of activity than either ciprofloxacin or Trim/Sulfa.

My last Blue Gigantea from DD, I treated with Trim/Sulfa. He relaped when I have to end treatment early. I put him back in TT and treat him with combination of Ciprofloxacin and Trim/sulfa. He is doing better despite a heat controller mal-function that got the tank temp up to 90 degree for a few hrs (in my QT reef system where I put this anemone in after treatment). Enough to crash the Xenia population I have there but I fixed that with 3 100% water change. The Gigantea seem to have a minor set back but doing well. I will update the thread later.

 

[OrionN]

I can admit up front that I have no experience treating these nems with antibiotics. My question is, is it or is it not hit or miss treating these nems prophalactically with antibiotics when there is no known diagnosis for what is ailing the anemone? Seems like putting a bandaid on a wound of unknown origin to me. Equating treating an anemone with antibiotics to treating a human with antibiotics seems like quite a stretch to me.

:shrug:

IMO, there is clear cut survival improvement for anemones with antibiotic treatment. The earlier, the better for survival. While it is nice to know exactly what we are treating, Dr. empirically treating without culture result all the time. It certainly cost a lot more to culture everything, and withold treatmetn until we have all the result would kill a lot of sick patients.
I would love to see retailer like DFS culture the next 10-100 sick anemones (what ever number that is feasible for them) and publish the result as to what bacterial species involved. There are a huge number of bacterial species but only a few handful are pathogen (for human). I am fairly sure it is going to be similar in anemone infections.

 

[TinManx]

D-Nak, Do you currently have any sick giganteas? I still want to try and use aiptasia as a model organism for treatment development. It's documented that pathogenic vibrio sp. can be transfected from sick coral to aiptasia.

 

[D-Nak]

D-Nak, Do you currently have any sick giganteas? I still want to try and use aiptasia as a model organism for treatment development. It's documented that pathogenic vibrio sp. can be transfected from sick coral to aiptasia.

I don't have any sick gigs right now. I do have a lot of healthy majano in my DT however, you're welcome to have those!

 

[OrionN]

Can't use Aptasia or Majano as model for treatment because they are not the same, or any where near delicate as the anemones we want to keep. Use them as test animal, then everything will work, meaning does not mater what med we do use, they will be fine, even without treatment.

 

[TinManx]

Can't use Aptasia or Majano as model for treatment because they are not the same, or any where near delicate as the anemones we want to keep. Use them as test animal, then everything will work, meaning does not mater what med we do use, they will be fine, even without treatment.

I am not exactly sure what you are saying. If you are saying that aiptasia are not susceptible to bacterial infection, or that they are not sucseptible to tranfection with vibrio sp. from other species of host, you are wrong. It is published.

If you are saying that treatment developed on a hardy species such as aiptasia may not transfer to S. gigantea due to its perceived delicateness, you may be correct. If you are saying that I may not be able to infect an aiptasia with gigantea disease you may also be correct. But science is about trying things that may not work.

 

[OrionN]

If we inject vibrio into the aptasia, sure they will get infected. How is that going to be our model for infection of Gigantea or Magnifica? Aptasia will live through anything. You scape them off of the rock with just a little tissue behind and a new on pop up.

If we are going to try to get some useful information regarding infection in host anemones, we will need to have a large number of anemones/sick anemones available. We will need resource to swab and culture these sick anemones and tabulate what are the bacteral species that infect these anemones. The culture also will have antibiotic sensitivity. Once we have these results, it will be easy to determine what is the best antibiotic to try to cover these infection emperically in the future.

Model animal is not needed to gather these type of informations.

 

[OrionN]

In this issue, we are (or at least I am) almost certaint that most of the time what kill these anemones are bacterial infections. These infections are due to the stress, injury and poor conditions (incompair to ocean condition) in which they are keep after collection. What we need is to improve the condition as much as we can (which have been done I am sure) and ID these pathogens and determine the antibiotic sensitivety of these pathogen so we can use this information and treat them when they are sick.

 

[TinManx]

If we inject vibrio into the aptasia, sure they will get infected. How is that going to be our model for infection of Gigantea or Magnifica? Aptasia will live through anything. You scape them off of the rock with just a little tissue behind and a new on pop up.

Will they live through vibrio infection. The literature examples say no.

If we are going to try to get some useful information regarding infection in host anemones, we will need to have a large number of anemones/sick anemones available.

To collect the number of gigantea needed for this study would be both inhumane and cost prohibitive (at least on my wallet).

We will need resource to swab and culture these sick anemones and tabulate what are the bacteral species that infect these anemones. The culture also will have antibiotic sensitivity. Once we have these results, it will be easy to determine what is the best antibiotic to try to cover these infection emperically in the future.

What kills cells on a petri dish may not work as a treatment in a QT setting, or may just kill the anemones. Aiptasia are more like gigantea than culture media.

Model animal is not needed to gather these type of informations.

I am confused on this one. How do you think therapeutics are developed?

 

[OrionN]

Will they live through vibrio infection. The literature examples say no.

I am not sure why injection Vibrio into aptasia would give us any useful information. If I want to kill an aptasia, I just inject kalk into it . What to do with tiny or inaccesable aptisia is the problem. I just get a CBB.

To collect the number of gigantea needed for this study would be both inhumane and cost prohibitive (at least on my wallet).

I think company like DFS would have enough anemones availabe to do the type of study I have in mind. They do have a lot of anemones moving through their facility. Set up culture swabs for these are not likly to be expensive.

What kills cells on a petri dish may not work as a treatment in a QT setting, or may just kill the anemones. Aiptasia are more like gigantea than culture media.

We always use petri dish to test treatments of antibiotics. This method works very well for antibiotics. In complext animals like mamals, there are various bariers that keep antibiotics or other molecules out of certain area, and rapid degradation of these molecules (kidney, liver, avrious molecues that bind to and degrade medication). This is why there is differences between in vitro and in vivo outcome. I don't think we need to worry about this in anemones.

I am confused on this one. How do you think therapeutics are developed?

We need to ID what these infections are. How does model animals/anemones give us this information? We even know that other host anemones does not get infected or died as easy as Magnifica or Gigantea.
Can you think of anyway you can use model animals to give us this information?

 

[raythepilot]

I do not know about gigantea but I've treated BTA for bacterial problems with cipro.
I keep them in a small isolation tank and do 2 x 100% (morning /night) water changes per day. With each change I weigh in the correct amount of cipro. This treatment is 100% effective after 5 days. The problem is the anemone come out of treatment bleached because the cipro is toxic to the symbiotic algae in the nem. It takes about two weeks after treatment for the anemone to return to full color.