The current state of S. gigantea - acclimation and antibiotic treatment
- Thread starter D-Nak
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raythepilot
Member
Do a google search on cipro as a plant killer.
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D-Nak
Active member
This is what I'm trying to determine. As Minh pointed out, some nems don't bleach. Could it be that the zoox is already dying or dead? On many occasions, treatment is accompanied by dead zoox but in a unique form where it appears binded ("rat poop"). This is not to say that the antibiotic is causing this binding.
D-Nak
Active member
D-Nak
Active member
Thanks, this is very interesting.
raythepilot
Member
I'm not sure what you mean, but from my own experience using cipro, if the nem doesn't bleach the cipro is probably not effective. Cipro is a potent plant killer.
OrionN
Moved on
I find it interesting also.
However, I like to pointout that zooxanthellae is more accurate described as endosymbiotic dinoflagellates. While they can be call an algale, they are not plants. They are not any closer to plan than the bluegreen algae which is more resemble a bacterial.
Zooxanthellaes are not even in the plante kingdom which all the plants belong to.
However, I like to pointout that zooxanthellae is more accurate described as endosymbiotic dinoflagellates. While they can be call an algale, they are not plants. They are not any closer to plan than the bluegreen algae which is more resemble a bacterial.
Zooxanthellaes are not even in the plante kingdom which all the plants belong to.
raythepilot
Member
You are right, I couldn't possibly know what I'm talking about after having done the experiment.
OrionN
Moved on
I am not sure if you been sarcastic or not.
I did sucessfully treated anemones with Cipro. Some bleach and other not. I don't know if Cipro kill plant or not, but this is beside the point as I pointed out that Zooxanthellae are not even plants. They are not even in the Plante kingdom.
I did find out that high dose prolong antibiotic are stressful to my Gigantea as I documented in my last Gigantea treated thread. The anemone did bleached. given everything, I cannot conclude that he bleached due to cipro.
raythepilot
Member
How about this (My experiment):
Start with a bifurcated nem. Both pieces healed but showing signs of bacterial infection (ie inverting, giving off slime.)
Nem A is control (stays in tank). Nem B goes into holding tank. Water in holding tank is changed 2x per day and equivalent of 25 mg /gal cipro is weighed in each time. Treatment is for 5 days.
Piece A is not bleached and still has signs of infection. Piece B is cured and bleached.
OrionN
Moved on
Ray,
Your experiment is full of holes. Do you really want me to poke at them?
The condition of the holding tank is obviously not the same as the DT. A better experiment would be taken them both to identical holding tanks (light, current, temp and water change regiment and same water source) the only different is the antibiotic.
Even with this you only have 1 trial. You cannot make sweeping conclusion with this finding.
You can also put 2 healthy anemone in optimal tank and treat them with Cipro on one and no Cipro treatment with the other. If you have multiple trials with this and cipro treated bleach every time, then you have something there.
As we found out DD treat their anemone with 7 days of Cipro at 250 mg/10 gal. Some of the anemone are bleach and other are healthy and not bleached. No control needed. Just this fact alone, would definatively show that bleaching is not due to Cipro.
Your experiment is full of holes. Do you really want me to poke at them?
The condition of the holding tank is obviously not the same as the DT. A better experiment would be taken them both to identical holding tanks (light, current, temp and water change regiment and same water source) the only different is the antibiotic.
Even with this you only have 1 trial. You cannot make sweeping conclusion with this finding.
You can also put 2 healthy anemone in optimal tank and treat them with Cipro on one and no Cipro treatment with the other. If you have multiple trials with this and cipro treated bleach every time, then you have something there.
As we found out DD treat their anemone with 7 days of Cipro at 250 mg/10 gal. Some of the anemone are bleach and other are healthy and not bleached. No control needed. Just this fact alone, would definatively show that bleaching is not due to Cipro.
raythepilot
Member
Of course, every nem that I treat this way gets bleached but I see clearly that I am wrong. Obviously you are using a more controlled method.
Are you sure that you have good cipro and a consistent level?
Could you try my technique and see what happens?
But then you don't have an unlimited supply of nem clones like I do.
D-Nak
Active member
Banter aside, whether or not Cipro bleaches nems may be a non-issue as gigs that are treated with both Cipro and Septra are both bleaching (or not bleaching) but are still dying. I was wondering if the two were related, but I realize it will take a lot to prove or disprove the theory. We just don't know if what's bleaching nem is also killing the nem. Granted, we know that without a healthy zoox population, the nem will need to eat or will starve to death.
As I mentioned in my initial post, while it helps to hear about other species of nems, we really need to learn specifically about gigantea. BTAs readily clone, and they are a lot hardier than gigantea, so it's hard to compare the two species as to how each will react to Cipro or any other antibiotic. I've never had to treat ANY of my BTAs. I've treated almost all of my gigantea.
raythepilot
Member
Your right! If we want to find something that cures a human disease do your study right in humans, Why mess around with mice. It's not the same.
Get my point.
If you have never had a sick BTA then you were pretty lucky. BTA suffer from the same decline disease as other species. In fact I've has healthy BTA's get sick from eating contaminated food. Had one for 6 months and went down in 2 months after taking frozen shrimp. If I had known about Cipro then I might have been able to save it.
Here is something that I think everyone here has a problem with. Crappy water. Yes bad water. My experience with BTA is that they are extremely sensitive to low levels of NH4+. You cannot test for the level of NH4+ that will kill a BTA.
I regularly do 2 x 25% water changes per week and often do 200% water changes per day when necessary.
You need that kind of water change to simulate a real reef condition.
OrionN
Moved on
It is easy for me to get Cipro for human rather for aquarium, but O do not think there is much different between the two.
I do think at the dose of 500 mg per 10 gal we reach near toxic level of Cipro for the anemone (Gigantea) I think 250 for 10 gal or 7.5 gal are more appropriate doses.
I think I will try to email Kevin with DD and see if he interested in trying to DI some of these infections.
Amoo
Member
Since this is a thread for gathering facts, it should be pointed out that this is just not one of them. Here's an example of why, This .pdf shows the toxicity level of one of the drugs I have acquired to try, Cefotaxime.
http://www.phytotechlab.com/pdf/antibiotics.pdf
It also shows the toxicity levels to a lot of other commonly used drugs to treat bacterial infections.
What the article you linked states is that Cipro can plants. Okay, so can almost all of the drugs listed on the table, but guess what, they are all used in some form of function via testing/treatment.
I have treated both a GBTA and a Purple Mag with 250mg/10G of Cipro for 7 days and have not experienced bleaching in either. Many others have treated and not experienced bleaching. Trying to state Cipro is toxic to Zoox and linking an article that says Cipro can be toxic to plants is just not going to cut it in regards to the types of info we're going to need.
Here's a study where Vanco, Carbenicillin and Cefo were used on multiple plants, again all three are toxic beyond certain levels:
http://www.horticultureresearch.net/pdf/Silva.pdf
To assume Cipro is any different is nothing more then an assumption of which the article you linked does nothing to dissuade.
Here's a Cipro study actually related to aquatic plants:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21919043
Or you can just get to the crux of the matter which is discussed here:
http://www.pjoes.com/pdf/22.1/Pol.J.Environ.Stud.Vol.22.No.1.71-76.pdf
The above was taken from an article published 3 years after the one you linked.
So we have learned that FQs, specifically Cipro does have some toxicity level to plants, as most drugs do. It also will inhibit chlorophyll synthesis. Nowhere have we learned that Cipro kills Zoos below or above a certain level.
Keep in mind also, that we are currently treating 250mg/10g regardless of size OR type of specimen. We don't have any specific guidelines in place based on size or kind of nem, it's just a sweeping "get the water to this concentration".
DasCamel
Active member
An ammonia badge starts to detect at .02, I had a little spike adding fish back into my system and noticed it. Ever since then my bubble tip has been on a slow death spiral. My others Nems were irritated and bounced back rather quickly. Some Amquel resolved the issue as the tank naturally balanced out. The ammonia badge was very key. I agree they really don't like ammonia.
taylor t
New member
I'm not familiar with all the medical lingo. But, what I do know, is I've treated gigs with a bottle marked as "aquatic cipro" (that makes PEOPLE sick, don't ask, it's different than pharmacy grade, I found out first hand) that has stopped the downward spiral of the gigs I've had to treat, and not all of them have bleached, and then have them recovered. To me, it doesn't matter what one calls it. I've watched them recover and not lose color with treatment, more than once. Have they lost color? Some, but not every time. If it was truly meds, it would happen every time. My test pool (me and Pete combined is over a dozen), is only a small batch of tested gigs with meds. For us, the meds work, and don't bleach every time, maybe it's a placebo? Not sure, but makes humans feel sick that's for sure. Either way, for us, it was the missing link we didn't have prior. I've also always been an advocate of 100% water changes every day when trying to get them to take, and I've found, how I make my water matters, for me anyways. Pulling off the 50 gallon container sitting doesn't have good results for me, I needed to make fresh every 24 hours with a power head in a 5 gallon bucket. Consistent. Gigs get to use water from hours 24-48 after making. Then change. Just how I did it with good results. Maybe, just the water changes makes the difference, and the meds don't matter. I don't know. What I think is they have problems purging from the shipping, on top of lacking flow and light for so long. Two other factors that play a big part. No matter how you see it, gigs are a TOUGH anemone to get to stabilize from import. A month won't do it, it can take that long just to show signs of dying. But to me, it seems once they are well "acclimated", they are pretty durable, more than sps corals anyways. Still sensitive don't get me wrong, but not hyper sensitive like in the beginning. I would never consider BTA as hyper sensitive, even when cut.
A few of our gigs came in already cut, as freshly cutting them would definitely add stress, which could be a factor too. I've cut BTA's also, and had one half act one way, and the other half act differently, same water. More than once. There is night and day difference between gigs and BTA, so how BTA's react isn't even a factor in my book. I've treated gigs together and had them both act differently. That's what makes our efforts in gig recovering so difficult, it's not a "one size fits all", we could talk all day about it and still walk away baffled. I currently have 2 purple gigs, both came in cut, both are recovering differently as one is nice and dark with the mouth becoming more centered (almost looks like it wasn't cut), the other is not as dark, still looks like it's partially bleached, and the mouth is still on the edge. Both treated the same, and both "stable", but far from acclimated, 5 months later.
I would consider only 2 (or 3) of my 7 gigs "well acclimated" ( I would consider it 3, but one of them was a cut in the beginning, and I'm not sure it would survive a cut again). The rest are just "stable". IMO, cutting a "stable" gig is a dead gig. Cutting an "acclimated" gig has a chance, IMO, but not a chance I'm willing to take, yet. Honestly, I bought one of the last 4 I added for a trial cut, but it takes so long for them to acclimate, not just become "stable". It takes sooooooooooooo loooooooooong for them to acclimate, yet, they can go downhill so fast. Just my .02.
A few of our gigs came in already cut, as freshly cutting them would definitely add stress, which could be a factor too. I've cut BTA's also, and had one half act one way, and the other half act differently, same water. More than once. There is night and day difference between gigs and BTA, so how BTA's react isn't even a factor in my book. I've treated gigs together and had them both act differently. That's what makes our efforts in gig recovering so difficult, it's not a "one size fits all", we could talk all day about it and still walk away baffled. I currently have 2 purple gigs, both came in cut, both are recovering differently as one is nice and dark with the mouth becoming more centered (almost looks like it wasn't cut), the other is not as dark, still looks like it's partially bleached, and the mouth is still on the edge. Both treated the same, and both "stable", but far from acclimated, 5 months later.
I would consider only 2 (or 3) of my 7 gigs "well acclimated" ( I would consider it 3, but one of them was a cut in the beginning, and I'm not sure it would survive a cut again). The rest are just "stable". IMO, cutting a "stable" gig is a dead gig. Cutting an "acclimated" gig has a chance, IMO, but not a chance I'm willing to take, yet. Honestly, I bought one of the last 4 I added for a trial cut, but it takes so long for them to acclimate, not just become "stable". It takes sooooooooooooo loooooooooong for them to acclimate, yet, they can go downhill so fast. Just my .02.
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