TonysReef
Active Member
Some backstory first. I'm considering moving in the near future, so I've been downsizing my tanks. Sold nearly all my fish, took my 72 and 96 gallons offline, but kept my 180 running basically as an established, more or less zero maintenance tank. It had my Colorado Sunburst Anemones (currently 4 large ones) thriving in it, with their pair of orange skunk clowns using them as hosts, 7 chromis I couldn't catch when I sold all my other fish, and a pair of wild ocellaris clowns that hosted in a large waving hand anthelia colony.
But as we all know, this is less of a hobby than it is an addiction, so I took a few rides to the shops lately just to look around. First to get some berghia to tackle aptasia, which led to a copperband for the same reason, both have proved useless (or at least too slow for me). Then a pair of harlequin shrimp to tackle an asterina outbreak (also slow workers). Anyway, onto the main story.
I got to my favourite LFS on Sunday as he was unloading boxes. Decided to grab a midas blenny, because why not. A powder blue tang, because I'm a moron and they're my favourite fish. And then he took out two large anemones. One I knew was a haddoni, because I've kept them a number of times over the years. But the second was a gigantea, which I don't think I've actually come across for sale.
First issue for him, it was large. Probably 24" across if uncurled. It was a little bleached and neon. I knew it wasn't an ideal specimen, but again it was the first time I'd seen one so I was doing some brushing up on them from my phone in the store. I try to resist impulse purchases, but we all know how it goes. Aside from the novelty of it, the driving factor was that I hate my ocellaris clowns living in the anthelia. Clowns should have anemones. It's not a reef tank otherwise. That's always been my philosophy anyway.
When I first asked how much, he said he would probably sell it for $180-200. At that price I could resist. As I was paying up he offered it to me for $150 (he clearly didn't want to hold onto it for ages). My total was $180 (medium powder blue $80, female harlequin shrimp for my male $50, large midas blenny $50). So I figured I'd take a shot and see if he'd let it go for $120, rounding my total out to an even $300. Somewhat to my surprise he said yes.
As I was driving home I gave some thought to setting up a QT tank and trying to treat it, but it's been a long couple of weeks and I don't have cipro on hand or enough water to set up a QT tank quickly, so it would have been at least another half day in the bag before I could put it in a tank of it's own. So in my exhaustion I decided to move some stuff around the main tank and throw it in hoping for the best. Also the bag water was already cloudy even though he had put the gig in his display tank, so it had completely clean water two hours previously.
My first concern while driving home was how my CSB's would react. I know they're considered a "weaker" strain and I know some anemones don't mix well and mine didn't react well at all. They all deflated almost immediately. But I put my carbon reactor online with fresh ROX and by Monday morning they seemed normal. Fast forward to day 3 and my CSB's all ate, so hopefully I dodged a bullet there. Also very luckily the clowns went into the gig immediately. Like within a minute they forgot the anthelia existed and the anemone was their new home. So that was encouraging. It probably helped that I moved the anthelia rock and put the gig in it's place.
Here is a video from about an hour after it went into the tank:
It moved up and into the rocks a little more since then. I'll take some more pics or a video today and try to track it's progress on here. I'm curious to see how it colors up as I know this isn't really a natural hue. I tried to offer it food on Monday (day 2) and even though it grabbed it briefly, it clearly wasn't interested in eating yet. In fairness I tried a whole silverside, which was dumb in hindsight. So I'll wait a few more days and try something much smaller to start.
I've read some of the gigantea threads and appreciate everyone's knowledge and experience on here. Appreciate any tips or advice.
But as we all know, this is less of a hobby than it is an addiction, so I took a few rides to the shops lately just to look around. First to get some berghia to tackle aptasia, which led to a copperband for the same reason, both have proved useless (or at least too slow for me). Then a pair of harlequin shrimp to tackle an asterina outbreak (also slow workers). Anyway, onto the main story.
I got to my favourite LFS on Sunday as he was unloading boxes. Decided to grab a midas blenny, because why not. A powder blue tang, because I'm a moron and they're my favourite fish. And then he took out two large anemones. One I knew was a haddoni, because I've kept them a number of times over the years. But the second was a gigantea, which I don't think I've actually come across for sale.
First issue for him, it was large. Probably 24" across if uncurled. It was a little bleached and neon. I knew it wasn't an ideal specimen, but again it was the first time I'd seen one so I was doing some brushing up on them from my phone in the store. I try to resist impulse purchases, but we all know how it goes. Aside from the novelty of it, the driving factor was that I hate my ocellaris clowns living in the anthelia. Clowns should have anemones. It's not a reef tank otherwise. That's always been my philosophy anyway.
When I first asked how much, he said he would probably sell it for $180-200. At that price I could resist. As I was paying up he offered it to me for $150 (he clearly didn't want to hold onto it for ages). My total was $180 (medium powder blue $80, female harlequin shrimp for my male $50, large midas blenny $50). So I figured I'd take a shot and see if he'd let it go for $120, rounding my total out to an even $300. Somewhat to my surprise he said yes.
As I was driving home I gave some thought to setting up a QT tank and trying to treat it, but it's been a long couple of weeks and I don't have cipro on hand or enough water to set up a QT tank quickly, so it would have been at least another half day in the bag before I could put it in a tank of it's own. So in my exhaustion I decided to move some stuff around the main tank and throw it in hoping for the best. Also the bag water was already cloudy even though he had put the gig in his display tank, so it had completely clean water two hours previously.
My first concern while driving home was how my CSB's would react. I know they're considered a "weaker" strain and I know some anemones don't mix well and mine didn't react well at all. They all deflated almost immediately. But I put my carbon reactor online with fresh ROX and by Monday morning they seemed normal. Fast forward to day 3 and my CSB's all ate, so hopefully I dodged a bullet there. Also very luckily the clowns went into the gig immediately. Like within a minute they forgot the anthelia existed and the anemone was their new home. So that was encouraging. It probably helped that I moved the anthelia rock and put the gig in it's place.
Here is a video from about an hour after it went into the tank:
It moved up and into the rocks a little more since then. I'll take some more pics or a video today and try to track it's progress on here. I'm curious to see how it colors up as I know this isn't really a natural hue. I tried to offer it food on Monday (day 2) and even though it grabbed it briefly, it clearly wasn't interested in eating yet. In fairness I tried a whole silverside, which was dumb in hindsight. So I'll wait a few more days and try something much smaller to start.
I've read some of the gigantea threads and appreciate everyone's knowledge and experience on here. Appreciate any tips or advice.
