H. Magnifica Treatment with Septra DS- 9/6/14

[Reefahholic]

So, let me give a brief summary of what's going on. I recently upgraded from a 90/G to a 180/G that I dropped and broke (don't ask). Now I upgraded to a 220/G. Tank has all of my old LR and Marine Pure Bio Balls. The sand was really dirty, so I had to rinse and bleach it. Needless to say, with the new sand and pipe, the tank went through a mini cycle and diatom bloom for a little over a week. It's leveling out now, but everything needs to mature. Still waiting on my skimmer, because I ordered the wrong one and sent it back. With that said, it's not a surprise that my new Magnifica (just posted pictures of him) deflated and got sick. I'm out of Cipro at the moment, but the new bottle will arrive Monday. I still have some Septra on hand, so I figured I would treat him with that for documentation purposes. As I stated in the Treatment Protocol thread, Magnifica's tend to respond better with Cipro, and Gigantea with Septra. I have treated Mags in the past with Septra and had mixed results. So... we'll see how this goes.





Before deflation and infection:



After In DT:



In 10/G treatment tank:



Close up:






So today (9/6/14) I dosed 1/2 pill to a little more than 5/G. 10/G tank is about 1/2 full.

 

[Reefahholic]

Today 5pm:

Improvement...




It's currently 8pm. I went to eat and left the light on. When I came home he was deflated. I've found that some mags are very light sensitive when sick. I'll leave the lights off tonight and all day tomorrow. Hopefully he'll perk back up. Will update tomorrow evening about 5pm.

 

[Reefahholic]

We'll, due to the new upgrade and the tank not being established, I'll be treating a Gigantea too. This is gonna be a rough ride until the new tank starts to really stablize. Hopefully I'll be able to keep them all alive. I have a feeling that I'll loose a gig or two.

I'll update the progress of both on this thread. Since I know that gigs respond better to Septra, he's going in the same HT with the Mag.

 

[pickupman66]

Um... u bleached the sand?

 

[Reefahholic]

Um... u bleached the sand?

Yes. I broke down my previous system and stored the sand in buckets with saltwater to keep it alive. It went toxic after 3 weeks, because I didn't get the new build up as expected. :-(

 

[pickupman66]

I hate to say it but that is where you made your mistake. If I were you I would have gone bare bottom or had brand new sand. Your existing rock should have had plenty of bacteria to go along with it. I recently downgraded from my 182 a 65 gallon cube and I kept about one third of my rock to go in the new tank. I used zero sand. I have two bubble tips and a flower anemone and none of the three showed any negative effects. Good luck with your treatment. I hope they both pulled through. But I'm afraid you may have a lot more issues with your sand and the rest of your tank unless you get that sand out.

 

[Justinky]

Good luck with the treatment Jared, if I end up having to treat my newest Mag I'll record it as well so there is more data on Reef2Reef about it.

 

[Reefahholic]

I hate to say it but that is where you made your mistake. If I were you I would have gone bare bottom or had brand new sand. Your existing rock should have had plenty of bacteria to go along with it. I recently downgraded from my 182 a 65 gallon cube and I kept about one third of my rock to go in the new tank. I used zero sand. I have two bubble tips and a flower anemone and none of the three showed any negative effects. Good luck with your treatment. I hope they both pulled through. But I'm afraid you may have a lot more issues with your sand and the rest of your tank unless you get that sand out.

I did use all existing established LR from the previous system. When you bleach sand by rinsing it, and adding bleach, and rinsing it, the goal is to get the sand white and sterile again like new sand. After the sand turns white and the toxic smell dissapates, you stop the bleach treatment. Then you stir and rinse daily until the water runs completely clear. Afterwards, you fill the brute up and let the sand soak and keep stiring daily. The sand becomes completely clean. Lastly, you drain and let it dry out. It's a lot of work but saves a lot of money- not having to buy 10 bags of new sand. When you add the sand to the tank, it's like adding a new sterile bag of dry sand. So the bleached sand isn't the problem. The problem is the sand and pipe is new. The tank has to become established again which will not take as long as the initial set up, because all the rock is established. The tank has already mini cycled and went through a short diatom bloom. It's currently on it's way getting ripe.

BTA's and Flowers are both easy anemones to keep. S. Gigantea & H. Magnifica are two very different species.

The BTA in my system is fine along with all my SPS.

 

[Reefahholic]

Good luck with the treatment Jared, if I end up having to treat my newest Mag I'll record it as well so there is more data on Reef2Reef about it.

Ok, thx. Yes I believe it's important that we record and discuss all treatments. Every treatment is different. Continuing to learn and document as we go will help us all in the future to better understand these difficult to keep anemones.

 

[Reefahholic]

9/8/14 4pm
More improvement:

 

[Reefahholic]

Ok, a lot going on today. My purple gig was going limp, so I pulled and started treating him last night with Septra. When I came home this morning both the mag and gig looked great. When I woke up, the gig was the size of a silver dollar. Not sure what happened. Two possibilities to consider. I put the purple gig in with the mag and brown gig last night for an hour or so while I got his tank ready. He could have passed infection to the brown. I've always noticed that these infections are species specific. A mag will get a mag sick and a gig will get a gig sick. The other possibility is the tank was very dirty. I also added saltwater that wasn't aged for 24 hours. I'm guessing it was the dirty tank water because the other purple gig still looks okay and this was before the new water was added. The magnifica looks like crap and even worse now, due to the unaged SW. I just don't have the time I need sometimes. I work 12 hour nights. On top of that, I fragged a Magnifica 4 months ago, and one frag has been really struggling lately. It's been my fault. He got baked in my sump during the upgrade. Water temp got way too hot one day. So anyway, I just finished treating him, and he's deflated again. So I put him in with the purple. Gonna be interesting tomorrow evening. I promised to keep you guys updated with both the good and the bad, and tell it how it is. One last thing before I post the pictures. Note the cloudy water from newly mixed SW. Had to break my own rule due to time.

 

[3Twinklets]

I hope they recover for you. It sure looks like they are trying.

 

[Reefahholic]

I hope they recover for you. It sure looks like they are trying.

They were off to a good start. We'll see how they look in the morning when I get home. I'll update before 10am. One thing I forgot to mention is that I changed to Cipro on the first two. The mag responded to the Septra, but not as well as Cipro. As you can see from the previous pics, the gigs always seem to do well with Septra. I'm pretty sure he deflated due to the dirty tank. I've noticed that they love pristine crystal clean water when they're sick.

I'm off tomorrow, so I'll have time to babysit.

Anybody have any suggestions how to jump start this new upgrade? I need to get it established as fast as possible.

 

[Reefahholic]

Here's a picture of the frags back in May.

As you can see, he's very bleached in the pic above and deflated.

 

[Reefahholic]

Ok, my apologies for missing the update this morning. Was super busy at work last night, and got home to a cloudy tank and two limp Nems. After doing the necessary work, I feel asleep.


So let me recap. After getting home from work, I found the tank super cloudy, and a lot of expelled food. Both Nem's were very limp, and didn't look good at all. I put them in a 5 gallon bucket and drained the tank. Then I cleaned it spotless. I added aged SW this time, and dosed 250mg of Cipro plus 80/400 of Septra to the 10/G. Since the mag was limp, I removed his rock. In the other tank, I found that the purple gig moved to opposite side of the tank and climbed up on the rock. The mag also climbed up on the glass. I Put a par 20 LED from Lowe's on the purple gig and mag. When I woke up at 2 PM to go to the bathroom, I found that the light made both the purple gig and mag go limp. I find this to be pretty common with sick Nem's, they do not tolerate light very well sometimes. So I also removed the rock that the fragged Magnifica was on. Although I did not update at 8 AM this morning, I did manage to grab a few pictures after cleaning the tank and dosing.

The pictures are from 8 AM and 2 PM:

 

[3Twinklets]

Just a thought, why not try putting them in clean water with no chemicals or treatments? Its worth a try. Also maybe add some screening to cut the light down so they can adapt.
I personally would allow some distance between these guys.

 

[Justinky]

Just a thought, why not try putting them in clean water with no chemicals or treatments? Its worth a try. Also maybe add some screening to cut the light down so they can adapt.
I personally would allow some distance between these guys.

I'll let Jared go into detail on what's going on with his anemones but H. Magnifica and S. Gigantea are the hardest anemones to keep alive, so if you have deflation or a gaping mouth present from either species treatment is almost always a critical step that needs to be taken with them.

Also anemones, especially H. Magnifica and S. Gigantea as these love high lighting, do not bleach like corals. They usually bleach when they do not get enough light as light is their main source of Zooanthellae production.

 

[BroncosZOA]

These two

Housing these two anemones together in a small tank while they are going through this might not be a good idea. they are some of the most potent anemones.

 

[3Twinklets]

It was a suggestion only. I would not have posted in the thread if I did not have prior experience with both of these.

I'll let Jared go into detail on what's going on with his anemones but H. Magnifica and S. Gigantea are the hardest anemones to keep alive, so if you have deflation or a gaping mouth present from either species treatment is almost always a critical step that needs to be taken with them.

Also anemones, especially H. Magnifica and S. Gigantea as these love high lighting, do not bleach like corals. They usually bleach when they do not get enough light as light is their main source of Zooanthellae production.

 

[Reefahholic]

Just a thought, why not try putting them in clean water with no chemicals or treatments? Its worth a try. Also maybe add some screening to cut the light down so they can adapt.
I personally would allow some distance between these guys.

Ok, I'll try it out.