Zooxanthellae Transplant for Bleached Anemones

[OrionN]

This is a copy of a posted of another of my thread. Maybe someone will find it useful.

I performed a Zooxanthellae transplant for my Bleached Gigantea today. I did photo documentation of the procedure as below:

1. Obtained a tentacle from my healthy donor. Since my anemone is so small, I will just use a small piece of fish, and just use 1 tentacle



2. Stuff the tentacle into a piece of food, salmon in this case:



3. Here is a picture of my anemone before I feed him the zooxznthallae laced food:



4. Feed the zooxanthellae laced food to the anemone:



5. Just follow up to make sure the anemone ate the food:



6. Post feeding picture:




I expect the anemone will start regain zooxanthellae in about 2 weeks. A little longer in this case because I did not feed him as many zooxanthellae as I wanted too.

[hotelbravo]

does the transplant transfer the color from the zoox or does it just transfer the organisms over. or both.
for example if i transfered zoox from my RBTA to my GBTA or between two other species of nems would the color transfer over

[Greg 45]

Orion can you post a better picture of where the nem is located. Is there that much feathered algae in the tank at all times.

[OrionN]

That is just my QT. Full of algae, I harvest it now and then. It really keep the water in top condition. My "anemone spa". It also have a little flat worm in it. I guess I have to reset up my anemone spa.
New anemone go into this tank. If he is sick I take him out to hospital tank to treat. Once better, they go back to this tank, until ready for DT.

[OrionN]

Originally Posted by hotelbravo

does the transplant transfer the color from the zoox or does it just transfer the organisms over. or both.
for example if i transfered zoox from my RBTA to my GBTA or between two other species of nems would the color transfer over

From another of my post


The golden brown is the color of zooxanthellae, other colors, blue, green, purple, multicolor ect... are innate pigment of the anemone due to it's genetic.
Short answer: if you have a green Gigantean that bleached, and you do a zoos transplant donor is a one in a billion bright red Gigantea, you will still end up with a very nice green Gigantea, not a red one.

Wouldn't it be nice if we can change the color of our anemone by just bleaching it?

[shifty51008]

Does the donor anemone have to be the same kind or can you use a bta's zooxanthellae on a gig?

[OrionN]

From another of my post


IMO, it is best if you use the same anemone species. However, if this is not available for me, and if my anemone is complete bleached, I would use any anemone as donor, and if this is also not available, I would try on one the LPS. I have never done this (cross species transplant) but I would try this instead of continue to let my anemone bleached. If anybody is doing/did this, I would love to see documentation of the result.

[shifty51008]

Thanks, we usually get anemones around here but most if not all are bleached which is why i never got one but i do have very healthy rbta's that i may be willing to try.

[COENONE]

Will this also work on a rbta ? Won't feeding alone bring back it's zooxanthellen?

[OrionN]

From another of my post


If an anemone lost all of his zooxanthella, he cannot recover unless he take in some zooxanthellae from the environment. There are quite a few species of zooxanthellae. Many of the ones that live in anemones and corals are obligates symbiotic so they are not in the environment, at least in too large of numbers.

........

There maybe some in the environment but not very many, if any. If you can feed a bleached anemone a few thousand appropriate zooxanthellae, it will jump start the process much quicker.

[OrionN]

I guess now most people realize why I wanted to put all of these information in one place.

[OrionN]

Originally Posted by Greg 45

Orion can you post a better picture of where the nem is located. Is there that much feathered algae in the tank at all times.

I just removed a bunch of Caulerpa Macroalgae last night. Here is a picture of the cube tank, and a picture of him this AM

[traveller7]

Originally Posted by OrionN

I guess now most people realize why I wanted to put all of these information in one place.

No doubt. Time to make it a sticky thread in my humble opinion.

[m0nkie]

very nice! that's a tiny little gig! looked a lot bigger at first until your last picture! lol..

[OrionN]

Still no color, not that I expected any just yet. I have a lot of Stomatella snails in my system, so I fed him another one this AM

[BonsaiNut]

I'm just curious...

Assuming that the gigantea regains its zooxanthellae, how will you be able to attribute that fact to the act of ingesting another anemone's tentacle?

I think it would be one thing if you started with 20 bleached anemones, and in the same water/environment fed 10 tentacles while did nothing with the other 10... and then measured to see how quickly they regained zooxanthellae... but you have no way of knowing if what you did currently had any impact.

[OrionN]

I agree that if I have mean and the money, doing a randomized trial of treatment would be the way to show the effect of Zooxanthellae transplant on the recovery of the anemone. Or even better, we can do DNA analysis of the Zooxanthellae to know for sure that the repopulated Zooxanthellae for sure come from the donor anemone. I do it as soon as you send me the money.

Joking aside, I have done one transplanted in the past and also read various accounts where the transplant were done. Often after the anemone bleached for many months, and the zooxanthellae repopulated at around 10 days plus or minus 2 days. While this may not be air tight result like a randomized trials, it is good enough for me.

Just because we don't have the very best data due to it is not practical, we don't have to throw out all the other data that we have. We can logically deduce the probable outcome, even if we don't have the perfect data.

[CoralsAddiction]

Originally Posted by orionn

i do it as soon as you send me the money.

lol.

[OrionN]

I t is 7 days since I did the transplant. No evidence of zooxznthellae re-population started yet. Continue to follow.

[traveller7]

I imagine the little Gig is still going strong, any news this week?

[OrionN]

T the 2 weeks mark, I start to see/imagine dirty tentacles on the anemone. These two pictures taken this AM before I leave for work. He is eating well.

[Pastey]

For clarification, you harvested the zooaxanthellae by simply plucking a tentacle from a healthy "donor"?

[shred5]

Uptake and Persistence of Homologous and Heterologous Zooxanthellae in the Temperate Sea Anemone Cereus pedunculatus (Pennant)

http://biostor.org/reference/10788

[OrionN]

Originally Posted by Pastey

For clarification, you harvested the zooaxanthellae by simply plucking a tentacle from a healthy "donor"?

Yes. With larger anemones, I feed them larger piece of food and able to put several tentacles inside the food. For this anemone, I was only able to cramp in one single tentacle.
I expect the zooxanthellae to return fully within the next 4 weeks

[Pastey]

If you don't mind my asking, how did you remove the tentacle from the donor? Razor, quick tug? I don't currently have any anemones but I am fascinated by this.