Amazing Gig

lemonade · Jan 18, 2022

Funky black spirals and what appears to be eggs or some off-white circular objects inside my blue gig. Any one ever seen either?

gig 'em · Jan 18, 2022

lemonade said:
Funky black spirals and what appears to be eggs or some off-white circular objects inside my blue gig. Any one ever seen either?

Are those not the purple dot verrucae that they use to anchor to surfaces?

lemonade · Jan 18, 2022

gig 'em said:
Are those not the purple dot verrucae that they use to anchor to surfaces?

It’s weird because I’ve had this gig close to a year now and it never had verrucae. The black spirals and the egg shaped objects are inside the gig, not on the surface of the underside. It’s pretty transparent with the light coming down on it, it’s just hard to capture on my phone. The multicolor gig next to it has clear purple verrucae and looks totally different from this. I was worried the black spirals might be some sort of parasite.

gig 'em · Jan 18, 2022

lemonade said:
It’s weird because I’ve had this gig close to a year now and it never had verrucae. The black spirals and the egg shaped objects are inside the gig, not on the surface of the underside. It’s pretty transparent with the light coming down on it, it’s just hard to capture on my phone. The multicolor gig next to it has clear purple verrucae and looks totally different from this. I was worried the black spirals might be some sort of parasite.

Are you sure it's not a haddoni? I doubt it's a parasite, it could just be a part of the anemone's anatomy. I'm not real familiar with the reproductive anatomy of carpet anemones, but it could have something to do with sperm/egg production. It's certainly not out of the question.

lemonade · Jan 18, 2022

gig 'em said:
Are you sure it's not a haddoni? I doubt it's a parasite, it could just be a part of the anemone's anatomy. I'm not real familiar with the reproductive anatomy of carpet anemones, but it could have something to do with sperm/egg production. It's certainly not out of the question.

It's 100% not haddoni. I've questioned wether it could be a hybrid because of the lack of verrucae, but it has long 1-2" tents and looks like any other Gig I've owned besides that fact. I know S. Gigantea is an internal brooder releasing fully developed baby nems. Which sort of leads me to believe this may be some components of its reproductive system, if not an internal parasite of some kind.

gig 'em · Jan 18, 2022

lemonade said:
It's 100% not haddoni. I've questioned wether it could be a hybrid because of the lack of verrucae, but it has long 1-2" tents and looks like any other Gig I've owned besides that fact. I know S. Gigantea is an internal brooder releasing fully developed baby nems. Which sort of leads me to believe this may be some components of its reproductive system, if not an internal parasite of some kind.

I don't want to derail this thread, but I'd love to see more photos of this carpet you have.

lemonade · Jan 18, 2022

gig 'em said:
I don't want to derail this thread, but I'd love to see more photos of this carpet you have.

Okay these first few pics suck I know but it’s very rare for the nem to be at the right angle to see through, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

The dark areas are either wormy looking spirals or clusters of circular objects

and here’s a few pics of the nem just for ID purposes. I’m fairly certain it’s a regular Gigantea

Maybe these are normal internal parts of the nem that I’ve just never noticed before? But they seemed odd and I was curious if others have seen anything similar.

You can see the lack of verrucae in this pic

gig 'em · Jan 18, 2022

lemonade said:
Okay these first few pics suck I know but it’s very rare for the nem to be at the right angle to see through, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

The dark areas are either wormy looking spirals or clusters of circular objects

and here’s a few pics of the nem just for ID purposes. I’m fairly certain it’s a regular Gigantea

Maybe these are normal internal parts of the nem that I’ve just never noticed before? But they seemed odd and I was curious if others have seen anything similar.

You can see the lack of verrucae in this pic

That’s definitely a gig, interesting that it doesn’t have any visible verrucae. I’ll try to get a macro shot of one of mine and see if we can identify similar objects.

gig 'em · Jan 19, 2022

lemonade said:
Okay these first few pics suck I know but it’s very rare for the nem to be at the right angle to see through, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

The dark areas are either wormy looking spirals or clusters of circular objects

and here’s a few pics of the nem just for ID purposes. I’m fairly certain it’s a regular Gigantea

Maybe these are normal internal parts of the nem that I’ve just never noticed before? But they seemed odd and I was curious if others have seen anything similar.

You can see the lack of verrucae in this pic

So after my lights finally came on I see that mine do also have some dark shadows closer to the foot of the anemone. You can’t seem them as much toward the pedal disc where the purple verrucae are, but they’re clearly visible near the bottom.

lemonade · Jan 19, 2022

gig 'em said:
So after my lights finally came on I see that mine do also have some dark shadows closer to the foot of the anemone. You can’t seem them as much toward the pedal disc where the purple verrucae are, but they’re clearly visible near the bottom.

That looks real similar to what I see, and also seems to be congregated near the foot on mine.

Funny how after years of keeping these this is the first I've ever noticed this. I guess the weird black spirals are really what caught my attention. I was worried that it was something that shouldn't be in there. Thanks for the pics