Ciprofloxacin discussion. (No arguing please.)

[2Sunny]

I have had an anemone in my reef since 2001. The first one I kept for over a decade. It split numerous times and was featured in a magazine article, and finally I sold it for a large sum in the fall of 2014. Sadly it died in the care of the new owner within months. Happily I gave a clone to Jason Edward of Greenwich Aquaria in 2005, and he is holding a clone of that anemone for me at his shop today. After that first anemone, I bought a second that grew so large I gave it to the Norwalk Aquarium this past winter where it is on display today. I then purchased a third anemone alas it arrived with a torn pedicle and died within a month. I then bought my fourth and fifth anemone a Bubble Tip and my fourth Ritteri, both of which are in my tank today, doing quite well. I have never treated any of the anemones with ciprofloxacin. All of my Ritteri anemones deflated and presented a gaping mouth numerous times for the first month I had them. Recently I found a scientific paper that may explain why the Ritteri Anemones behave in this manner.

Depth Influence on the Zooxanthellae Abundance and Primary Productivity of Branching and Massive Corals on Bama Beach Baluran National Park

This paper provided data showing that the lower light environment corals live in the higher the concentration of zooxanthellae. This would explain why anemones expel zooxanthellae IF they are collected from anywhere other than the highest reaches of a reef. Also logically an anemone can only inflate and deflate and turn out its mouth as a means of expelling anything which would imply, to me, that deflation and mouth opening is a normal behavior.

I have scoured the internet for actual papers on bacterial infections of anemones in captivity and or treatment of captive anemones with antibiotics. All I found were numerous papers showing that ciprofloxacin has varying toxicity towards photosynthetic algae.

Growth Response and Toxic Effects of Three Antibiotics on Selenastrum Capricornutum Evaluated by Photosynthetic Rate and Chlorophyll Biosynthesis

In a recent thread one new anemone owner contacted a local vet and asked about using ciprofloxacin and here is the post:

I called all the vets in my area (Northern California) and none will give me antibiotics of any kind. One who specializes in aquatic creatures even said that using cipro would be "irresponsible" because it is too harsh and leads to poor outcomes for anemones. Any thoughts on that or other ways to get cipro?

In addition there was another paper quoted in that thread that provides evidence that direct feeding of anemones improves mass and may be necessary for anemones from warmer waters that have a higher metabolism

Effects of feeding regime on growth rate in the Mediterranean Sea anemone

Another paper offered evidence that having clownfish is important as they provide "food" for the anemone through their excretions

Nutrient transfer in a marine mutualism: patterns of ammonia excretion by anemoneWsh and uptake by giant sea anemones

Finally I would note that I maintain my reef at 78.0 to 78.5 degrees fahrenheit all year round.

So now getting to my point. Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but I think there are several commonly held beliefs on this forum:

1) Many anemones arrive unhealthy and with a bacterial infection.
2) The health or, lack there of, of an anemone is indicated by deflation and mouth extrusion.
3) The use of ciprofloxacin is the best means for "saving" an anemone that is deflating and has a gaping mouth.
4) Anemones should not be or do not need to be directly fed especially when newly arrived.
5) Many anemones prefer warmer water above 80 degrees fahrenheit.

Now my purpose in starting this thread is not to start an argument or say my methods are better than any other reefer out there. My purpose here is to uncover any scientific research to support the use of ciprofloxacin because it is my hypothesis that ciprofloxacin use is harming more anemones than helping, but I am very open to evidence to the contrary. What I am NOT looking for is a discussion that includes anecdotes from other reefs. I am keenly aware many people have used ciprofloxacin and have healthy anemones.

So if anyone has any links to scientific research supportive of treating captive anemones with antibiotics I would be most appreciative.


My anemones:

2001 the start

That anemone in my 180 in 2002

Then again in 2004

The first clone given to Jason Edward in 2005

My second anemone purchased in 2014 and shown here in 2017

and of course my current Ritteri

and my Ritteri on a magazine cover in 2012

 

[gig 'em]

I think the most difficult part of your request is there just isn't that much, or any, research out there that focuses specifically on treating tropical sea anemones with Ciprofloxacin. Unfortunately what this hobby does have is just a bunch of anecdotal evidence of improved survival of anemones vs. not using it at all and hoping for the best. I know 10 years ago when I would buy magnifica anemones they would usually inflate/deflate and be gone within weeks. Now I have much better success with them when I can intervene with cipro treatments.

I don't doubt for a minute that antibiotics take their toll on these animals. They often come out of treatment with less zooxanthellae than they started with, but at for the most part at least they are alive and can rebuild their populations as they recover.

I also don't believe the hobby full understands what is happening with these animals when we treat them with cipro. Is there a pathogen that is actively attacking them? Or is it more of a case that their immune systems are compromised during the collection and shipping process that bacteria take advantage and begin to wreak havoc on them? I think there is evidence with stony corals that supports this hypothesis, Vibrio that naturally exists on the skin of corals can be harmless until the immune system of the coral is compromised. All we know really is that survival is improved with intervention with antibiotics.

My neighbor has even seen anemones that he has had in captivity for years decline in health when a new anemone is introduced into the system and treatment with cipro reversed the decline in health of his anemone and saved it. This anecdote suggests something bacterial was introduced to his mesocosm that caused a decline in health, and wasn't simply a change in environmental conditions. It's not hard science with peer reviewed results, but it's observations followed with anecdotal evidence of success.

 

[gig 'em]

I think feeding is also not completely understood. Feeding has had mixed results for me personally. Most of my anemones grow incredibly quickly without direct feeding and I have had a couple of situations where I fed an anemone and immediately saw a decline in health. It's easy to come to the conclusion then that feeding can be an unnecessary risk.

For example this magnifica grew from this to a size that was so large I had to rehome it to a friends tank that could house it. Probably 24" wide after a couple years of growth without direct target feeding.

The same has been seen with my gigantea anemones.

I don't target feed my anemones and they grow quickly, even too quickly for my liking. To me this suggests they certainly don't need direct feedings to survive, let alone grow. Of course I'm sure they capture food from the water, but this is just mysis and fish eggs when I feed the tank. And I'm sure like coral they absorb ammonia directly from the water from fish excretion.

No scientific papers here to cite, just anecdotal evidence. As hobbyists most of us just don't have the resources and time for controlled experiments, so this is the best we can do, sharing stories of observations of failures and success.

 

[2Sunny]

First off beautiful 'nems and congrats on the success! And, this is what I love about the internet because in researching my response I came across this paper:


The abundance and size of giant sea anemones at different depths in the waters of Teluk Tamiang village, south Kalimantan, Indonesia


and learned that I have been very wrong in my beliefs on temperature as the temperature bore a direct relationship to abundance and was between 28.5 - 30.3 degrees C (83-86 degrees fahrenheit) so clearly I have been freezing my poor anemones to death for 2 decades.

But . . .back to the topic at hand

Until recently I would have wholeheartedly agreed with this statement:

. . . They often come out of treatment with less zooxanthellae than they started with, but for the most part at least they are alive and can rebuild their populations as they recover.

but, the scientific paper to which I linked provided evidence that the opposite MAY BE true and supports this comment from an online retailer:

The brown stuff that's often discharged from anemones, and coral, is actually zooxanthellae (The algae that lives within them.) This is very common with newly introduced critters. If the anemone came from a low light environment, it's likely to have a large population of zooxanthellae.

Quite possibly anemones MAY BE expelling zooxanthellae in our tanks not only as a response to stress but also because the light we provide is more intense than what they had in nature. The deeper a coral is the more zooxanthellae it needs or put another way, the more light a coral gets the less zooxanthellae it needs. At least that is what the one paper I found shows. Bottom line though is that the behavior of expelling zoox may be natural and not indicative of ill health at all. (I don't have time now, but my next angle of research is to find how much light the anemones were getting in the paper I quoted at the start of this post because the scientists concluded that the anemone abundance was not correlated to depth but it WAS highly correlated to the intensity of light so finding that natural intensity would be immensely helpful)

. . . My neighbor has even seen anemones that he has had in captivity for years decline in health when a new anemone is introduced into the system and treatment with cipro reversed the decline in health of his anemone and saved it. This anecdote suggests something bacterial was introduced to his mesocosm that caused a decline in health. . .

The problem I have here is the assumptions, and feel free to correct me if you feel I am not making fair assumptions. I know all to well that the internet is not a good medium for fully expressing ones meaning. Assumption one: the reaction of the existing anemone to the presence of the new anemone demonstrated failing health. Unless the anemone died we can't know this as we have no way of saying an anemone is not healthy. We simply have no research that says deflation and mouth extrusion or expelling zooxanthellae is demonstrative of ill health in an anemone. What we have is a common perception of such in the hobby. As a corollary one can not say that it was the ciprofloxacin treatment that enabled the anemone to survive. One can accept that assumption as perhaps logical, but one can not assert that scientifically, and it would be my assertion that the anemone survived in spite of the treatment.

My primary hypothesis (and this holds true for all corals AND fish) is that biologically healthy aquarium water that is as close as possible to natural sea water in the environment from whence the animals came is the key to healthy sea creatures. To me this implies water that has 35 ppt salinity, 8.1 pH, dKh around 8, temps 80-85, is low in ammonia and phosphate, and has some active population of bacteria, zooplankton and phytoplankton. When these parameters are met and held constant, I believe it affords sea creatures time to use their natural immune system to ward off and recover from any stressors of transport. I would note that since starting my 180 in 2002, I have never lost a fish to disease. I lose fish frequently due to jumping but never disease.

Again, I am keenly aware there are as many paths to successful anemone care as there are captive anemones, but I am just wanting to share my thoughts on the topic of using antibiotics and see if there is scientific evidence behind the opposite view.

Thanks for sharing your experience and knowledge. It is greatly appreciated.

 

[ca1ore]

I have had an anemone in my reef since 2001. The first one I kept for over a decade. It split numerous times and was featured in a magazine article, and finally I sold it for a large sum in the fall of 2014. Sadly it died in the care of the new owner within months. Happily I gave a clone to Jason Edward of Greenwich Aquaria in 2005, and he is holding a clone of that anemone for me at his shop today. After that first anemone, I bought a second that grew so large I gave it to the Norwalk Aquarium this past winter where it is on display today.

I'm familiar with that yellow tentacled mag at Greenwhich Aquaria. Last time I was there I think it was actually three anemones. You are right that. when happy, magnifica anemones can grow huge. I can only say anecdotally that antibiotic treatment of these animals does appear to have improved success rates. If you follow @EngineerRock thread to the end you will see some intital evidence of that.

 

[2Sunny]

I'm familiar with that yellow tentacled mag at Greenwhich Aquaria. Last time I was there I think it was actually three anemones. You are right that. when happy, magnifica anemones can grow huge. I can only say anecdotally that antibiotic treatment of these animals does appear to have improved success rates. If you follow @EngineerRock thread to the end you will see some intital evidence of that.

Yes, I'm happy to report Jason was able to move one clone out, and I am very excited to be reintroducing a clone of my original anemone to my tank. (Although he just texted me and said the clone got caught in an overflow so I'm crossing my fingers its ok!) This time no amount of money will entice me to part with it, and I fully intend to let it form a colony. It was my experience that the clones preferred to stay right next to the original as they have been doing in Jason's reef. That also means I will be selling my current H. Mag. locally very soon.

Obviously as one of the most experienced reefers with one of the broadest industry knowledge bases I hold your opinion in very high regard so when you say "improved success rates" is this based on local experiences with people you know, or online anecdotes, or some combination? Just wondering how much chance there is of "quantifying" the improvement.

 

[ca1ore]

Obviously as one of the most experienced reefers with one of the broadest industry knowledge bases I hold your opinion in very high regard so when you say "improved success rates" is this based on local experiences with people you know, or online anecdotes, or some combination? Just wondering how much chance there is of "quantifying" the improvement.

Well, as noted its purely anecdotal .... no scientific rigor. But I've treated a bunch over the years and only lost one. Of course, I cannot say how many would have survived without treatment. If you check out folks like @D-Nak or @OrionN, they've treated more than a few too.

 

[gig 'em]

First off beautiful 'nems and congrats on the success! And, this is what I love about the internet because in researching my response I came across this paper:


The abundance and size of giant sea anemones at different depths in the waters of Teluk Tamiang village, south Kalimantan, Indonesia


and learned that I have been very wrong in my beliefs on temperature as the temperature bore a direct relationship to abundance and was between 28.5 - 30.3 degrees C (83-86 degrees fahrenheit) so clearly I have been freezing my poor anemones to death for 2 decades.

But . . .back to the topic at hand

Until recently I would have wholeheartedly agreed with this statement:



but, the scientific paper to which I linked provided evidence that the opposite MAY BE true and supports this comment from an online retailer:



Quite possibly anemones MAY BE expelling zooxanthellae in our tanks not only as a response to stress but also because the light we provide is more intense than what they had in nature. The deeper a coral is the more zooxanthellae it needs or put another way, the more light a coral gets the less zooxanthellae it needs. At least that is what the one paper I found shows. Bottom line though is that the behavior of expelling zoox may be natural and not indicative of ill health at all. (I don't have time now, but my next angle of research is to find how much light the anemones were getting in the paper I quoted at the start of this post because the scientists concluded that the anemone abundance was not correlated to depth but it WAS highly correlated to the intensity of light so finding that natural intensity would be immensely helpful)



The problem I have here is the assumptions, and feel free to correct me if you feel I am not making fair assumptions. I know all to well that the internet is not a good medium for fully expressing ones meaning. Assumption one: the reaction of the existing anemone to the presence of the new anemone demonstrated failing health. Unless the anemone died we can't know this as we have no way of saying an anemone is not healthy. We simply have no research that says deflation and mouth extrusion or expelling zooxanthellae is demonstrative of ill health in an anemone. What we have is a common perception of such in the hobby. As a corollary one can not say that it was the ciprofloxacin treatment that enabled the anemone to survive. One can accept that assumption as perhaps logical, but one can not assert that scientifically, and it would be my assertion that the anemone survived in spite of the treatment.

My primary hypothesis (and this holds true for all corals AND fish) is that biologically healthy aquarium water that is as close as possible to natural sea water in the environment from whence the animals came is the key to healthy sea creatures. To me this implies water that has 35 ppt salinity, 8.1 pH, dKh around 8, temps 80-85, is low in ammonia and phosphate, and has some active population of bacteria, zooplankton and phytoplankton. When these parameters are met and held constant, I believe it affords sea creatures time to use their natural immune system to ward off and recover from any stressors of transport. I would note that since starting my 180 in 2002, I have never lost a fish to disease. I lose fish frequently due to jumping but never disease.

Again, I am keenly aware there are as many paths to successful anemone care as there are captive anemones, but I am just wanting to share my thoughts on the topic of using antibiotics and see if there is scientific evidence behind the opposite view.

Thanks for sharing your experience and knowledge. It is greatly appreciated.

Over production of zooxanthellae is certainly a real phenomenon. I see it semi regularly with the torch coral in my tank, some evenings it will be ejecting large quantities of brown strings of zooxanthellae.

I remember snorkeling in Thailand and seeing gigantea anemones just a foot or two under the water. The water was also incredibly turbid, almost couldn't recognize them until I was right on top of them. Warmer waters, with large fluctuations in solar radiation depending on the conditions of the water and the tide. They can deal with varying environmental conditions when they're healthy.

The best way to test the wide held belief that ciprofloxacin cures a pathogenic bacteria that is causing the declining health of anemones is to use Koch's postulates. The challenge here is finding a "sick" anemone with the gaping mouth and inflate/deflate cycle AND have several well established and healthy anemones of the same species. The other challenge is finding someone who is willing to pay for and risk the life of their anemones to test this hypothesis. Especially if we're talking about magnifica anemones, they're hard enough to find as it is, I don't know anyone who would risk their collection of magnifica anemones to prove or disprove the validity of ciprofloxacin as a cure for sick anemones.

 

[OrionN]

One pictures first, the rest at the end if you care to look:

I guess most people know that I was the reefer that wrote about and disseminate how to treat sick anemones with antibiotic, especially ciprofloxacin.

To be sure, I was not the first reefer to use antibiotic. I research as much as I can on how other reefers treated them before but there was never any detail information. I use logic to select the antibiotic and experiment guided by my knowledge to come up with the dose and the protocol of how to treat them.
Before 2010 the survival rate of Gigantea and to certain extend Magnifica was dismal. Very few Gigantea survive for more than a few weeks in our tank. Magnifica did slightly better. I was able to keep several Magnifica since the late 1990’s. I even documented and wrote about asexual reproduction of Magnifica on Reef Central back in 2002. I was able to keep all the other host anemones except Gigantea and Mertensii. I did not care for Mertensii but spend a lot of money to try to keep Gigantea and unable to. They keep dying on me. I was not a novice at keeping aquarium, having keep marine aquarium since 1980 and fresh water, and breeding fresh water fish forever, late 60’s as long as I can remember. I have been helping my father breeding gold fish, koi, since I was a toddler.
Twice, I introduced newly import anemone to my tank with thriving anemone and lost all of them. One time I lost two Magnifica that I had for 7+ years to a sick Magnifica. One time I lost a beautiful blue Haddoni to a newly imported green Haddoni. It was clear to me that infection was what kills a lot of the newly imported host anemones, especially Gigantea and Magnifica.

Living in Corpus Christi, I don’t have much of a choice in getting nice anemone. For more than 10 years, I was never able to get and keep a Gigantea alive for even a few weeks. I researched and corresponded with every reefer who has a Gigantea. Prior to 2010, one can count the number of Gigantea in captivity in the US (outside of the Waikiki Aquarium) with the fingers of my two hands. Today, after using antibiotic, I rarely loose and anemone, even the anemones I get at Petco. I would pick them straight on arrival and nurse them to health.



Regarding the toxicity of ciprofloxacin, it is well known. Medications, not like money, more s not better. Antibiotic is something that will kill, we need to give it at therapeutic dose; at which dose it will kill the bacterial but not the host animals. I always stress with other reefers when I gave advises. More antibiotic is toxic. One is good, but two is not twice as good, rather can mean toxic and death.

I am convince that antibiotic, especially Cipro works in helping me, and a lot of other reefers able to get Magnifica and Gigantea healthy and acclimated to captivity, and greatly decrease the initial mortality of these beautiful animals. I am glad that I came up with the protocol because I feel it really help increase the numbers of Gigantea in captivity from a handful of them to uncountable number at this time, a huge change since 2010.

Not all anemones require antibiotic treatment but a lot of the host anemone does. Live Aquaria recently wrote about the procedure they use to treat host anemones. Apparently, they prophylactically treat all Magnifica with ciprofloxacin for 5 days. Although I don’t know this for sure, it is my believe that a lot of the importers and wholesalers have started to threat Gigantea and Magnifica prophylactically with Cipro like Live Aquaria.

Here is a quote from a article by Live Aquaria

Protocols for Sensitive Anemones
Our protocol for sensitive species of anemones differ slightly as many sensitive anemones such as the Ritteri Anemone (Heteractis magnifica) are highly susceptible to bacterial infections. After being drip acclimated, these sensitive anemones are transferred to our dedicated anemone medication station where each anemone is individually placed in their own treatment or “hospital” vessel equipped with a heater and airstone to provide proper water circulation. To combat any potential bacterial infections, these sensitive anemones are treated with the broad-spectrum antibiotic ciprofloxacin at therapeutic levels for five days. The water in the treatment vessel is changed daily to ensure high water quality. Therapeutic levels of ciprofloxacin is maintained after each water change to ensure continuous exposure.


After the ciprofloxacin treatment period is over, these sensitive anemones are carefully transferred to one of our Marineland Commercial Holding Systems specifically designed to house these anemones. To help replicate natural environmental conditions, substrate of proper composition and depth, along with live rock fragments or coral rubble (when needed) are provided. We employ Marineland Commercial Holding Systems as it allows us to maintain optimum water quality and lighting conditions for the anemones. The anemones are kept separate by species and the adjustable modular compartments allow us to further customize holding space to accommodate anemones of varying size. The anemones are carefully photoacclimated within this dedicated holding system, using nylon screen or mesh to adjust light intensity.

This quote can be found here:

https://www.liveaquaria.com/article/274/?aid=274

 

[AmaleeC]

Following.

Also, side note, your tank must be beautiful with all of the anemones! @OrionN

 

[OrionN]

@2Sunny,
Regarding your believe that we give our anemone too much light, in comparison to what they get in the wild, resulting in them shedding zooxanthellae.

The host anemone that requires the most light is S. gigantea. Gigantea often, routinely find exposed to direct tropical sun above the water for hours. There is no way that we can provide more light than almost all Gigantea get in the wild. Zooxanthellae that they lost are because they are sick and stressed, not because we give them too much light. I would argue that for both Gigantea and Magnifica, the light we give them in captivity is a lot less than the light they normally get in the wild. That is why we often arrange to Magnifica move to get to higher ground, and we can only get Magnifica to not move if we have him on the highest point that he can reach and with reasonable amount of light. Magnifica have been known to just inflate his foot and sail away... into the PH when we don't give them enough light, and in the process kill all the fish in the tank (other than clowns)

Gigantea do not move around in search of more light like Magnifca. I think this is because how they evolved and where they are in nature. Magnifica live on the reef structure. There are high point and low point in the reef. Seeking more light Magnifca will naturally try to move up. Magnifica are low enough in the reef that they have no risk in air exposure . Gigantea on the other hand, live on the reef flat, among the rubbles and sand. In this environment, there are minimal brightness differences between the top of the rock a few cm lower in the rock and sand area. The advantage near the sand is moisture. In the hours of exposed to dry air, the sand holds a lot more moisture than on the top of a small rock, and a lot cooler too.

IMO, that is why we see Gigantea always attach to the SIDE of the rock or at the rock sand interface, not the top of the rock like Magnifica. IME, in keeping all host anemones other than Mertensii, Gigantea require the most light by far than any other host sea anemones. Where they live in the wild means that there is no way, even in a high light SPS tank, we provide them with more light than what they get in the wild.

BTW, I never acclimate my corals and anemones to the brightness of my tank. I just select where I think is the appropriate place, and turn the light on full level like I normally have it.

 

[D-Nak]

I was hoping that @OrionN would chime in, as it prevents me from having to write a novel.

He won't typically tell you this, so I will. As a doctor of internal medicine, OrionN has the knowledge and experience to back his assessment of Ciprofloxicin. The protocol he developed was not based merely on a whim.

We've corresponded quite a bit over the years, and I firmly believe that without his treatment, I don't think many hobbyists would have both magnifica and gigantea in their tanks. I owe my entire collection (currently 7 gigs and 2 magnifica, with one more coming this weekend) to him.

As others have mentioned, as hobbyists, we simply don't have the resources to conduct experiments based on the scientific method, nor are there compelling reasons for institutions that do have the resources to conduct them as well. So, we're forced to rely on anecdotal evidence.

I've treated several dozen anemones, from BTAs to haddoni to gigantea to magnifica. My track record is probably at 50%, with many losses coming at the beginning of my attempts. In recent years, the condition of anemones that arrive here in the SF Bay Area are generally a lot better than they were, so that could also factor into my success.

Some tidbits that I picked up along the way:

1. Nightly water changes -- 100% of the water including wiping down all equipment -- is critical. Removing as much of the contaminant/bacteria/ailment increases the rate of success.

2. Using freshly made salt water is safer than using tank water. This removes the possibility of anything present in tank water fouling an acclimating anemone.

3. Septra is not as effective as Ciprofloxacin. Based on multiple attempts, I believe that Septra should only be used as a last ditch effort to save an anemone, and the expectation is that the rate of success is low. A part of me feels that Septra is too "strong" and essentially rids an anemone of all bacteria, both good and bad, while Cipro provides the right balance of killing whatever is harming the anemone and also allowing it to recover on its own.

4. Without the Cipro protocol, all anemones that spiral into the deflate/inflate cycle will perish. I can say with 100% certainty that all nems I've had that entered into this cycle and weren't treated with Cipro have died.

To summarize, Cipro does more good than bad. Even if an anemone doesn't exhibit signs of a typical infection, if you have Cipro on hand, it doesn't hurt to use it so long as you stick to the protocol.

 

[D-Nak]

My question to the OP @2Sunny

What leads you to your hypothesis that ciprofloxacin use is harming more anemones than helping?

 

[OrionN]

@2Sunny
Regarding your thinking that healthy anemone will be able to fight off infection; I feel the same way too. My fish don't get sick either. I don't even QT and treat my fish. I routinely place fish with Ich in my system and the disease will fizzle out in a few weeks. I do QT sensitive fish, but only to get them use to living and eating captive food. I often QT them in the sump, or in my 40 gal system connected to the main system.

I do QT my corals, clams and anemones due to various diseases and pets I got into trouble with, the most significant of which was Pinched Mantle Disease in clams (PMD) with wipe out most of my clam collection early 2000's. My encounter with PMD results in the Fresh Water Dip (FWD) as the only successful treatment for PMD to date almost 20 years since I came up with this protocol.

We can't argue that anemones are stressed to the max when they were harvested and shipped 1/2 way around to world then ended up in our tank, many of which have far from ideal condition. Some anemone species can tolerate this ordeal a lot better than other. The two that have particularly hard time making the trip are Gigantea and Magnifica. I think you have no experience with sick, newly imported Gigantea, but did have experience with 2 maybe three Magnifica that are relatively new from the ocean. You obviously an accomplish reefer, able to keep Magnifica anemone for long term, congratulation to you. However, your experiences and success keep you from having a lot of experiences with sick newly imported anemones like @D-Nak , @ca1ore , @gig 'em, @Taylor t or myself. I don't think you have any experience with Gigantea, the hardest host anemones to get healthy.

They get infected and diseased due to the stress and the damage from capture and transport, often with minimal water, and in close quarter with other anemones. Once healthy Gigantea and Magnifica anemones are relatively easy to keep. However they often won't survive the trip without help IME.

I am not a stranger to control medical experiments. I was involved a lot with research and develop treatment protocols for various chemotherapy agents for various cancers on human. I though and already devised a protocol to isolate the infectious agents for Gigantea and Magnifca anemones. However, the actual cost of this is way more than I can afford. I even discussed with Kevin at LA. He even agrees to supply me with all the Gigantea and Magnifica I needed. However, the time involved, the space and the shear equipment’s, tanks, light, heater PH are just too much. In order to have sufficiency power, I have to have each anemone in its own isolated environment and a numbers of them in each group. Just the culture itself would be almost 100.00 for each culture. The time commitment and my three children at the time was just too much (all three boys were born between 1998-2005) so I scrape the whole experiment.
Here we are today, having a treatment protocol that I, and many experienced reefers, thinks very effective but certainly no hard experimental data to prove it.

 

[Anthony Scholfield]

This is awesome information, thank you for sharing!

Do any of you have any mags or gigs for sale? I am looking to purchase them. Please PM me if you do.

 

[gig 'em]

I think @OrionN has seen what a lot of us have seen that supports the idea that there is a pathogen present with anemones that are demonstrating sick responses. Just introducing a sick anemone to a tank of healthy anemones and observing the resulting failing health of the previously healthy anemones is a direct correlation that supports the pathogen bacteria hypotheses. The same does not typically occur after introducing a treated anemone to a tank full of other healthy anemones.

I know @2Sunny you want a published paper with detailed experimental design and results, but it just doesn't exist yet as far as I know. Just citizen science, which at the moment lends a pretty strong argument toward Ciprofloxacin treatments helping more than it harms. I think we would all love to see a published paper on the topic though! And maybe one day it will be done, until then I'm going to continue treating new nems with cipro because it's the best solution at the moment for me.

 

[D-Nak]

I think @OrionN has seen what a lot of us have seen that supports the idea that there is a pathogen present with anemones that are demonstrating sick responses. Just introducing a sick anemone to a tank of healthy anemones and observing the resulting failing health of the previously healthy anemones is a direct correlation that supports the pathogen bacteria hypotheses. The same does not typically occur after introducing a treated anemone to a tank full of other healthy anemones.

I know @2Sunny you want a published paper with detailed experimental design and results, but it just doesn't exist yet as far as I know. Just citizen science, which at the moment lends a pretty strong argument toward Ciprofloxacin treatments helping more than it harms. I think we would all love to see a published paper on the topic though! And maybe one day it will be done, until then I'm going to continue treating new nems with cipro because it's the best solution at the moment for me.

I concur.

The pathogen is also species specific, possibly genus specific.

When I first started treating anemones, on a few occasions I would treat multiple anemones in the same tank. I observed that if S. gigantea was treated with H. magnifica, on more than one occasion the gigantea would perish while the magnifica would survive.

On another occasion I received a shipment of three gigantea. One turned out to be S. haddoni that was mis-IEed by the vendor. One gigantea clearly showed signed of an ailment, while the other two anemones did not. All three eventually died.

Finally, my LFS received a red haddoni that was showing signs of distress and asked if I wanted it at a discount to try to revive it. Without thinking, I brought it home at added it to my DT, in hopes that a stable environment would help it. At the time I had one healthy, established gigantea in the tank. Within a few days it began to deflate. Both went into separate QT tanks. The haddoni died and the gigantea survived.

My takeaway was that the pathogen can be spread to and from S. gigantea and S. haddoni (and possibly S. mertensii) but not necessarily to and from H. magnifica.

I now treat all anemones in separate tanks.

I was walking my dog with my wife the other day, and near my house is a business park that often advertises lab space for lease. I told my wife that if we won the lottery I would want to rent space for a lab that would specialize in anemone neurotoxin research, but also to conduct experiments to determine what causes anemones to perish after being collected from the wild. Of course, I'd fly out @OrionN to assist with lab set up. I guess my first step is to buy some lottery tickets.

 

[D-Nak]

Another observation. Most often than not, when an anemone enters the deflate/inflate cycle, it's often accompanied by the nem expelling what we believe to be dead zooxanthellae.

My assumption was that while in transport after being collected and also while in various holding facilities, the anemones do not receive ample light, and as a result the zoox die. For some reason, the anemone either lacks the ability to, or somehow knows that it's in a closed environment and does not expel the dead zoox. For whatever reason, this zoox is held within the anemone.

Once we begin treatment, these anemones start to expel dead zoox but in pellet form, sometimes as small as ground pepper, all the way up to what I describe as rat poop. This is in contrast to typical waste, which is often stringy and quickly breaks apart in the water column.

The reason I bring this up is because I'm wondering if there is a direct correlation between dead zoox and the pathogen. Is the pathogen attacking the zoox and not the anemone itself? Could it be that this pathogen is common and is parasitic, sensing that the zoox is in distress, so it attacks it (similar to Cryptocaryon irritans)?

Is there a reason why many anemones that are bleached, but not expelling dead zoox are able to recover? When using Cipro, one of the side effects is bleaching. How are these related?

I'm not looking for answers per se, but just want to show that this is a complex issue and it's not going to be solved quickly.

 

[gig 'em]

Another observation. Most often than not, when an anemone enters the deflate/inflate cycle, it's often accompanied by the nem expelling what we believe to be dead zooxanthellae.

My assumption was that while in transport after being collected and also while in various holding facilities, the anemones do not receive ample light, and as a result the zoox die. For some reason, the anemone either lacks the ability to, or somehow knows that it's in a closed environment and does not expel the dead zoox. For whatever reason, this zoox is held within the anemone.

Once we begin treatment, these anemones start to expel dead zoox but in pellet form, sometimes as small as ground pepper, all the way up to what I describe as rat poop. This is in contrast to typical waste, which is often stringy and quickly breaks apart in the water column.

The reason I bring this up is because I'm wondering if there is a direct correlation between dead zoox and the pathogen. Is the pathogen attacking the zoox and not the anemone itself? Could it be that this pathogen is common and is parasitic, sensing that the zoox is in distress, so it attacks it (similar to Cryptocaryon irritans)?

Is there a reason why many anemones that are bleached, but not expelling dead zoox are able to recover? When using Cipro, one of the side effects is bleaching. How are these related?

I'm not looking for answers per se, but just want to show that this is a complex issue and it's not going to be solved quickly.

I haven't looked under a microscope, but I would imagine that the zooxanthellae that are expelled from the anemone during shipping and treatment aren't dead, but still alive. The anemone is likely expelling them due to stress from the shipping process and treatment regimen, or like you said, they are housed in the dark for a while and lose some zooxanthellae along the way. When the anemones are then suddenly exposed to more photons than they've seen in a while, they aren't equipped to handle the excess production and expel zooxanthellae to reduce production, similar to my torch coral on certain days. This is just my educated guess.

 

[Corey Baker]

I don't really have anything to add other than this has been a good read. interesting thoughts, ideas, and theories. From my experience my RBT splits ever couple months fist size clones i typically hand out to LFS with many comments on what a beautiful nem. i dont feed them other than what floats around the tank with only one large female clown in the tank. I have never treated any of my nems, guess i have been lucky. So thanks for the good read and keep it goiong!