Zooxanthellae Transplant for Bleached Anemones

[OrionN]

For carpets, it is easy, just stick your finger to the anemone and you will end up with several as you pull it out. For other species of anemone that are not as sticky, just grasp it with anything, I imagine a pair of tweezers will do just fine.

[blando233]

So i have BT anem that split awhile ago. Now one of them was hiding a lot and i think lost its Zooxanthellae because it is white now and he is kind of small. I been feeding him shrimp every other day or so but still white. I called my LFS about the transplant but they thought i was crazy and never heard of it. Any suggestions by chance?

[OrionN]

Almost 3 weeks and no sign of zooxanthellae return yet.

[OrionN]

Almost 4 weeks. Just now see some dirty looking tentacles. Not enough to show in a picture yet but I am optimistic. This seem to take a lot longer than other people experience and more than twice as long as my last transplant.

[Irishdolphin]

Great thread - look forward to photos

[akida]

Originally Posted by OrionN

Almost 4 weeks. Just now see some dirty looking tentacles. Not enough to show in a picture yet but I am optimistic. This seem to take a lot longer than other people experience and more than twice as long as my last transplant.

I had/have a very bleached green gig when I purchased it. It's been eating well however these past couple weeks the tentacles look as you say "dirty". I'm assuming that is a sign of new zoxanthellea? That term fits it well too. I glanced over and thought I was imaging things. It's not the brown you see on healthy gigs, it's like a patch of tentacles are dirty brown.

[PfenWendt]

Any update on your nem? I may have to try this for my bleached nem and see how it goes. Maybe yours is taking longer than your last one as result of only being able to get 1 tentacle in the food? just a thought

[OrionN]

It did not take. Still bleached. I got really busy and just keep on feeding him with fish food. I barely a few minutes for the tank every day.
I will redo transplant this weekend (or next weekend). I have some idea as to why it did not work and will write down what I think in detail when I get around to it, when I try to document the transplant again.

[jake2045]

Any updates?

[OrionN]

I got really busy and did not post much lately. I did another transplant about 2 weeks ago but did not document this procedure this time. It is essentially as I documented before. Two weeks later, the zooxanthallea start to come back. I took this picture just now to show an area of the tentacles start to "look dirty"

[OrionN]

Why did this second transplant works while the first time it did not? Thinking about it, I have several thought:
Unlikely but some people may said that the zooxanthellae just comeback regardless of what I do. Now that I got this out, I cannot outright reject this but the timing of recovery make this unlikely.

There are several things I did the that may cause the first procedure from working:
I took too long and worry to much about documented it and the result of this is that the donor tentacles got dry out a bit. In addition to this, I thaw out the salmon with RO water. It is still wet then I tried to insert the donor tentacles into it. The combination of increase salinity from drying out and then decrease salinity from RO water may have do in the Zooxanthellae so that none was alive when the bleached anemone ingest them.

So word of advice's: don't let the donor tissue dry out even if a little bit and make sure you thaw the food with tank water instead of RO

Over all I am happy with the recovery of my anemone. Now that he is about to become un-Bleached, I think he will be just fine.

[Eric Dumont]

Wow really impressive !!
Did you experiment with a donor of another species?
Like LPS?

good job!!
continue to document

[ThRoewer]

This is how I do it, forced contact with other anemones of the same or similar species:



The two on the bottom where bleached when I got them.

In the past contact with a dark brown anthelia has worked too.

[OrionN]

Originally Posted by Eric Dumont

Wow really impressive !!
Did you experiment with a donor of another species?
Like LPS?

good job!!
continue to document

I did not since I got multiple Gigantea to choose from

[Bajie]

Stupid question so apologies in advance as it just popped into my head

If the anemone was originally, say green, and got bleached, when you transplant the zooxanthalae would it become the colour of the donor anemone eg purple?

EDIT : Re-read thread and got answer.

[OrionN]

Here is my Anemone today. Not completely recovered yet but is on his way. Look like he will be greenish Gigantea

[dangros]

Originally Posted by OrionN

Here is my Anemone today. Not completely recovered yet but is on his way. Look like he will be greenish Gigantea

Very nice! Should work out well. I lost mine last week while I was on vaca. I think the tank was overfed b/c there was a ton of red alg growing everywhere when I returned. My family and I were also stuck for an extra 3 days due to the almost 3' of snow we got from the blizzard. It was looking ill right before I left but due to the trip, I couldnt cipro. I was hoping it would hang on but w/the tank a bit out of wack, I guess it had no chance. The interesting thing, however, is that my ocellaris clown now hosts the RBTA. Didnt do that before putting in the carpet! I would like to get another but am not feeling like risking it - plus it was such a pain to find.

[OrionN]

When I have a sitter take care of my tank, I portion out the amount of food each time the sitter to feed the tank. In fact, for anything add to the tank, I specifically portion the amount, or specifically ask them to give an specific amout. This prevent a lot of disaster, especially if you ask a non reefer to take care of your tank.
I even show them exactly how to clip the Nori on the holder.
I mark the water level and if need how much water to add (in the event that my auto top off not 100% correct). I don't use a level control top off but an an adjustable continuous pump to add Kalk.

Too compulsive you said? No, not at all. What is common sense to us is not at all common send for another person.

[dangros]

I totally agree Minh - not a bit compulsive when you're trying to be safe. I actually did portion the feedings into cubes per day and cut slices for the eel. However, the person helping me, didnt quite understand due to her excitement of the tank and all that was inside. She ended up putting in whole shrimp chunks for the eel leaving it in the water to decompose if it wasnt eaten. Also the storm was so severe, no one could get to the house to top off the top off container. That caused the ATO pump to burn up. It was running dry for about 2 days. Not enough to destroy anything in the tank, luckily. All things considered, I was lucky. Not much damage just a bunch of cyano and a dead baby carpet that wasnt doing so well to begin with. Now I'm debating getting another.

[OrionN]

Final update. My Gigantea is well at this time. I will feed him and get him bigger. Zooxanthellae repopulated but still light at places. I expect him to continue to improve and grow. Never mind the flat worms in my QT. I need to re setup this tank to eliminate the flatworms.

[edward1096]

Aw :/ lower the lights

[edward1096]

what kind of anemone could I put in a pico?

[Askari1407]

Mini max carpets stay little bit carpets tend to be more predatory they're dangerous only if you keep gobies or blennies that move at the bottom

[John2755]

Following this too, this is really interesting

[PRDubois]

Why cant you just use Aspasia?