Treating and adding 3 Nems to the 350G

[Josepha7697]

Hi Everyone, Happy New Year. I am looking for everyone's feedback on my process plan for treating 3 Nems. I have a ritteri and two bubble tips going into my 350G tank, that has been cycling for 6 months with a few frags, snails, and two clowns. Parameters have been stable, No3 - 12, Po4- .02, Alk 8.4, Calc 420, Ph 8.2 for a few months. My obvious concern is the ritteri. It was treated at AquaSD and it is doing well there. I have seen threads where they can get bacterial infections in your tank from the introduction of a new anemone, even after being in your tank healthy for years, hence the reason I plan to have all 3 come in together, treat, and introduce to the tank at the same time. My plan is to treat the two bubble tips in a 10G hospital tank for 5 days with a daily dose of Cipro/FishFlox, at Minh/OrionN's recommended dose of 250mg for the tank, changing 100% the water on days 2 and 4, and day 6 with fresh DT water. In the meantime, I will treat the Ritteri 7 days with Cipro in a 20G high, (half full) changing 100% water the first 4 days, day 6 and day 8 with fresh DT water. All tanks will have separator for heater and PH, and I will then observe for about a week before they go into the DT.
Questions:
1. The bubble tips are beautiful, with great rainbow and yellow colors. Do you think the Cipro will kill off the zooxanthellae to the point where they will loose their vibrance and not come back? Should I treat the bubbles shorter, or not at all? What is the likelihood of the bubble infecting the ritteri, if I don't treat? (my guess is high).

2. After I have treated the two bubbles and the ritteri separately, and then observe for a week separately, I am planning to put them on opposite sides of my 7ft x 3ft tank, which has anemone protection on the gyre and mp40s. I have heard a few of you (Minh, D-Nak, Tmoriarty, Calor1e, etc.), that have kept ritteri's and bubble tips together with a large mixed reef, any issues I should steer clear of?

3. I posted this brain dump so that you all can tell me what I am missing and any advice, please share with me. Thanks
-Joe A

 

[Ron Reefman]

bump

I've never treated an anemone with anything before putting it in my tank, even wild collected ones from the Florida Keys (BTW, I have 35 nems in my 90g DT). Why do you feel you need to give these nems so much quarantine and medication?

 

[Josepha7697]

Thanks for the feedback Ron, 35 nems is impressive, do you have any ritteri's in there? I have read many Heteractis Magnifica/Ritteri threads, and personally experienced myself, a ritteri arriving, looking healthy for a few days, and going from "healthy" to dead in a matter of a few days from a bacterial infection, without being treated with Cipro. I believe there is an ammonia spike in the bag during shipment, and this inflames bad bacteria in the digestive tract of the ritteri. The bacteria explode in the tract in a matter of days, which is why it looks fine in the first days/week and then starts its deflation cycle of death. I am considering just treating the ritteri, and observing the bubbles in a separate QT. My concern is that I only treat the ritteri, put him in the main DT with the bubbles, and the ritteri gets infected. I guess in that case, I can put all three in QT if that happens. Any and all advice is welcome. Thanks for everyone's help.

 

[Ron Reefman]

I don't have a Ritteri anemone, just 30+ rock flowers (love the fluorescent colors), 4 maxi-mini and a couple curly-cue anemones. All pretty easy to keep. I may add a RBTA to see if my clowns would be interested.

Your research sounds reasonable. Good luck.

 

[Josepha7697]

Thanks I am just trying to balance between the bubble tip loosing its colors if I do treat, and the bubbles passing bacteria to the Ritter I if I don’t treat

 

[Ron Reefman]

To be honest, I've never added an anemone to my tank and had any issues. And over the years I've added several different species that I collected. Mostly from the Keys, but a couple locals as well.

Yesterday I collected 2 small stars, a few small mollusks, a small urchin and 2 small clumps of algae (fine green and leafy red). The algae will get used for food in the tank.