A possible treatment for the slow decline of carpet anemones?

[MartinM]

I think all of us Carpet anemone fans are familiar with the slow decline and death of carpet anemones, especially of new arrivals. I always attribute this to their inability to acclimate, and stress from collection and shipping, which I’m sure it can be a part of it. But I think the actual culprit, as many of us know now, is a bacterial infection. Myself and several others on the forum (thanks to those who wrote the stickies here!) have had really good experience with relatively high doses of ciprofloxacin treating H.Magnifica anemones. However, in my experience, the same dosages cause high stress in S. Haddoni Carpet anemones. I prophylactically treated apparently new S. Haddoni anemones in the past of the same dosage that I treated H.Magnifica anemones, and it triggered a stress response and killed the S. Haddoni whereas thr H. Magnificas improved and remain healthy. Multiple times I’ve seen similar negative reactions to dosages that cure H. Magnifica anemones. So, I’ve been hesitant to treat S. Haddoni anemones with cipro.

A months ago I purchased a seemingly healthy new Haddoni from a LFS, but over the course of a month, not knowing why, it deteriorated and eventually died. Then after a month or so, my other 3 Haddoni carpets started to exhibit the same symptoms (inflating/deflating, restlessness, mouth opening and showing signs of stress, foot not attaching fully) and I realized it has to be a pathogen.

Because I was worried about trying to dislodge three large carpet anemones and move them to a quarantine team, I decided to treat the display tank. I started this regiment https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/e...ic-treatments-for-brown-jelly-disease.782438/ 10 hours ago and already seeing improvements thankfully. I’ll treat at .125mg/L 2x/day, since I’ve treated anemones with much high dosages before with success, but this is the first time treating a display. So far no negative reaction from the LPS, softies, and clam tankmates. As a sidenote, the anemones started showing symptoms after I turned off the UV sterilizer that I was using along with hydrogen peroxide (humblefish regiment) to treat ich in the system (which was successful).

I’ll try to remember to keep this thread updated with progress.

takeaway: I think cipro is a good idea for all carpets before intro to the display, but as much lower dosages than are typically used for H. Magnifica.

 

[D-Nak]

This is VERY interesting. I didn't read through all of the pages yet (I plan to shortly) but I've had the same experience as you with haddoni and Cipro -- all that I treated have died and I suspect that the Cipro dosage may have been too high.

Haddoni in general seem to be more resistant to bacterial infection, as witnessed by the fact that they actually ship better than all other carpets, as well as H. magnifica. However, in my experience, once they get infected, they rarely recover and antibiotics at the standard dosage doesn't help.

My main concern with dosing Cipro into the main DT has always been that it could kill beneficial bacteria. However, as someone mentioned in the thread, the use of Chemiclean essentially decimates the bacteria population (since it contains Erythromycin) and the tank can recover. I recently wondered if Chemiclean can be used to treat anemones.

I had a battle with red slime and finally broke down and dosed Chemiclean. I was concerned that my CSBs wouldn't like it, and sure enough, they immediately lost their color. However, as expected, it also killed all of the red slime (which, as we know is not an algae but a bacteria!). Part of my plan was to use Dr. Tim's Waste Away and Re-Fresh. Initially, I used just those two products to remove the red slime, but that didn't work. As a last ditch effort, I dosed Chemiclean, waited a week, than added Waste Away and Re-Fresh at the recommended dosages for cyanobacteria treatment. Long story short, the red slime is gone, the live rock has ZERO nuisance algae (there is hair algae in some places but only on the tank walls that my tangs keep in check), and the CSBs have gained their color back.

This is just my long way of saying that I think it's fine to use antibiotics in the DT, as long as certain protocols are followed. That includes making sure to add back beneficial bacteria (such as Dr. Tim's) once the antibiotic treatment is complete.

 

[MartinM]

I’m glad I’m not the only person that’s noticed the mag cipro dosages are probably too high for Haddonis.

One anemone was showing signs of reverting so I’ve upped the dosage to .25g/L twice a day (4x the minimum dosage that’s shown to be effective against some strains). I’ll keep updating!

 

[MartinM]

double post

 

[MartinM]

I am seeing major improvement today after putting the dosage at the aforementioned four times the minimum. In fact everyone looks happy and normal now. I continue the treatment for me three more days for a minimum total of five days.

I do think it’s important that the sticky threads in this forum be updated to reflect that the dosage is potentially lethal for Carpet anemones, and that dosages should be gradually increased with the maximum dosage being significantly less than used for Magnifica anemones.
This low dosage is the first time I’ve ever seen this many carpet anemones not only recover from an infection but not deteriorate when the antibiotics are added.

 

[MartinM]

Good news! This protocol worked and all anemones are healthy and happy again. Not sure who to ask, but I think this is worth a sticky here for carpet anemones owners

 

[ocboat]

This is fantastic information. Thanks for taking the time to update us on your treatment.

 

[gig 'em]

Maybe someone should write a new well documented thread for treating haddoni anemones so it can become its own sticky!

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Maybe someone should write a new well documented thread for treating haddoni anemones so it can become its own sticky!

I agree with this. Same applies to rbta and rfa as well, not near as much needed for treatment from my experiences.

Also as a side note, I have treated a full on reef tank with cipro at lower dosages for some sick looking lps and sick looking ltas. Worked wonders for both.

 

[Nemguy123]

Haddoni are tricky I have less of a survival rate with transshipped large haddoni rather then Mags and gigs. This latest haddoni I got in was huge it is probably fully grown it’s been about a month and he is just settling in and getting color back. I’ve noticed nee haddoni are more sensitive to high nutrients abs I had to move the larger guy into my clam and sps system to get him to acclimate without antibiotics. He seemed to pull through great the nitrates in that system are 1 and phosphates .2

 

[NoMu Fish]

Hello everyone! I have recently purchased a Haddoni carpet nem and came across this thread! It looks colorful, healthy, attached, and acclimated as of now, but what are some of these signs of slow decline i should be aware of? Anything in particular that will stand out?

 

[MartinM]

Inflation and deflation cycles that occur more than once or twice, and of course, gaping mouth. Post photos if you have questions!

also see https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/p...reatment-of-s-haddoni-carpet-anemones.888426/