Those with experience/knowledge of the use of anitbiotics please chime in.

[Winwood]

I recently purchased two mags that have been suffering from the inflate/deflate cycle usually associated with their demise. I believe these two nems have a fighting chance. They are well anchored and remain closed mouthed. My intentions at the moment are to leave them be but if things take a turn for the worse I am definitely entertaining the idea of medicating them. I would encourage anyone with any knowledge or experience in treating anemones to please contribute.

Here is a shot of the anemones in question.

 

[D-Nak]

This isn't "technically" an antibiotic, but when I had a sick gig, a target "fed" it iodine. I know this isn't a proven method, but at the time I was willing to try anything. I simply dosed the recommended amount for my tank, but dosed it into the gig. It seemed to perk up after this treatment, but it eventually died. I believe it was a combination of causes, since I accidentally ODed with kalk during the same time. I now have a healthy gig and no longer dose kalk, but instead used 2-part. I can't say I recommend using iodine, but at the time I was desperate (but not too out of my mind to notice that iodine did seem to make a little bit of a difference). Good luck with the mags, they are quite a challenge.

 

[D-Nak]

By the way, the reason I gave iodine a try was because I knew that anemones benefit from it, and also because its known to help fight off bacterial infections.

 

[spoonman1979]

Definitely give it time. My Mag exhibited this behavior when I first purchased him, for the first week or so. It has been almost a year since I added him, fine ever since.

 

[bradleym]

IDK how much this will help since I am only 2 weeks in, but here's my story.

I got a Mag that was very healthy and looked healthy for 4 days. On day 5 it went south FAST and started the cycling. Over the next 2 days I discovered and fixed the following.

Salinity: 1.022 due to a bad refractometer (topped off with 1.030 saltwater to fix)

Alkalinity: 7-8 due to never testing (added buffer manually until I hit 11 and am now learning how to dose it in my top off water)

Phosphates: 0.13 due to not testing in months (added GFO to fix)

The pH was swinging due to the Alk, so the dosing for Alk got it sorted out. I also added a shade over the nem's area just to be on the safe side. I've read that they don't always acclimate to our lights well, despite their high light requirements.

That started about 10 days ago. Each day since I started teating these issues resulted in smaller cycles, and by 4 days after it started, it had stopped and I was back to where I started when I added it. As of today, it is still going strong, although still occasionally moody. I removed the shade on saturday, so we'll see how it responds over the next week.

I hope this is helpful to you, I would like to see yours make it as well.

 

[Reefvette]

Anti Biotics

Anti Biotics

Anti biotics are not to be used lightly.

Sometimes it can lead to certain death just from the Stress.

Antibiotics kill bacteria which may have or still be in your tank. There is good and bad bacteria in our tanks.

This is why we have begun to recommend not keeping anemones in mixed reefs

 

[Winwood]

Thanks for all the responses and information everyone. The iodine idea is particularly interesting. I assume one tests their levels before adding additional iodine? Also, what did you use to dose the gig specifically?

Reefvette- my intentions with antibiotics, if it comes to that, was to treat the anemone in a separate 10 gallon and not throughout my display.

 

[Tethered_Limbs]

following, good luck.

 

[Reefvette]

Winwood

Winwood

What im saying about Anti Biotics is that there maybe bad bacteria in your tank that are sickening the anemone.


Do you run a UV?

 

[D-Nak]

Thanks for all the responses and information everyone. The iodine idea is particularly interesting. I assume one tests their levels before adding additional iodine? Also, what did you use to dose the gig specifically?

I used a Red Sea Iodine Pro kit to test to make sure that I wasn't overdosing. Unfortunately, the accuracy isn't great (+/- 0.03 ppm) on a range of 0.0 to 0.09 (0.06 being ideal) and my understanding is that many of these types of kits don't offer a complete iodine test.

I dosed Kent Iodide (I know this is different from Iodine, and the chemical difference still confuses me) but also thought about using Lugols (the anemone died before I got some). I used a small needle-less syringe and dosed it right into the gig's mouth. Hardly scientific, I know.

If you're thinking about dosing Iodine, I would read up on its uses and potential drawbacks. Many believe that is doesn't have any benefits. You can also quickly overdose the tank which could lead to big problems.

 

[M Woodhill]

I dosed human anti-biotics in a quarantine tank

it did work well

but there were some questions still left:

1, how much precisely to dose

2, how perfect the quarantine tank must be

3, how to judge mags recover to their fullest

I put the seemingly remedied mag back to dt and it was perfect in the first few hours and then restarted the cycle of inflation and deflation but it lasted in the cycle for months. then it disappeared. don't know where it is but its sure dead now. i havent seen any signs of it in the months since it disappeared.

probably the pollution it released led to my present bad outbreak of dinoflagelletes

this time i'm tryin to dose some hydrogen peroxide to kill dinos. hopefully the anemone will react well

but i'm still waiting for the dinos seems to be in control by other means

 

[M Woodhill]

one more to state, the mag i dosed with anti-biotics first seemed dead but then inflated without deflation in the quarantine time

 

[D-Nak]

As Reefvette stated, the bad bacteria may be in the DT. Once the treated nem is added back to the DT, it may be attacked again by the bacteria which could be causing the inflation/deflation. In other words, this could be something like red bugs or AEFW, where the entire tank needs to be treated.

On a side note, I wish someone would receive a grant to conduct research on anemone inflation/deflation, particularly with magnifica and gigantea. However, without the potential for financial gain -- other than the marine ornamental aquatics industry -- I doubt it will ever happen.

 

[M Woodhill]

As Reefvette stated, the bad bacteria may be in the DT. Once the treated nem is added back to the DT, it may be attacked again by the bacteria which could be causing the inflation/deflation. In other words, this could be something like red bugs or AEFW, where the entire tank needs to be treated.

On a side note, I wish someone would receive a grant to conduct research on anemone inflation/deflation, particularly with magnifica and gigantea. However, without the potential for financial gain -- other than the marine ornamental aquatics industry -- I doubt it will ever happen.

that's what i sincerely wish for

i tried to figure out what did bad to the mag and to send it to an ottawa u lab

but it **** just disappeared

really hope some institutions could conduct some serious experiments on mags and gigs. but the problem is they r so cheap to collect in the sea so death means nothing to the profit while experiments and research mean a lot

 

[Reefvette]

working

working

I am working on it. no grants needed!

 

[Winwood]

What im saying about Anti Biotics is that there maybe bad bacteria in your tank that are sickening the anemone.


Do you run a UV?

I do not? I actually hadn't even considered it, however now that you mentioned it, I may give it some serious consideration.

On a different note I came home to both mags inflated. In the case of mag in front it is puffed up bigger than it has since I have had it so the optimist in me wants to take this as a good sign. Here are a few updated shots.

 

[bradleym]

Nice! I'll keep my fingers crossed for ya!

 

[Winwood]

Thank you! Both seem to be remaining inflated but lack the rigidity of a truly healthy specimen.

 

[bradleym]

When mine pulled out of it, it took 5 days of cycling before it would close it's mouth long enough to feed. I only knew it was improving because the deflating gradually got SLIGHTLY less shrivelled each time over the 5 days. And even then it took another 5 days before it was able to maintain "rigidity". So my point is, don't pull your hair out if it deflates again. The recovery is not always immediate. I wish you the best of luck!

 

[Catchoftheday]

Yes Good luck with your Mags