Baby gig

[OrionN]

When I get back home I'll try and find one of mine and see if they have similar markings. I sure hope it's not a ball anemone, but I'm cautiously pessimistic in my personality

Do your u also have some “possible Gigantea “ babies?

 

[29bonsaireef]

I hate to be a spoiler, but looking back at the images it's looking like Ball Anemone may be a more likely ID.

One of the main reasons I'm skeptic is the bulby(ball) like tips. The smallest Gigs or Haddoni I have seen was probably dime size, so I little bigger than this. However, even the smallest ones I saw never had tips like that. No distinct ball like tips that I can recall.

I did some more digging on Ball anemones, because I've only had a few before and they were very translucent and in deep shady areas. Here's some photos of ball anemones I saw that looked very similar to this, even the small bits of fluorescent greens.

pics from the web

 

[gig 'em]

Do your u also have some “possible Gigantea “ babies?

Not in my main DT. My gigs are in a separate system where I don't have any ball anemones. The ones I have that look incredibly similar to Taylors have been in my DT since day 1 and have the same color foot and look of the tentacles. I'm sure like any anemone, there will be variations of colors within the species/sub species.

 

[Taylor t]

I just remembered I added a bag of the “live sand” from a bag I think may 2018. It sat maybe 6 months in a box BEFORE I USED IT too. But we’ve all had crazy stuff grow out of our rocks years later. Only one bag was added, and 2 are still sitting on my floor-haven’t had time to add it, I think the dates on the bags have past, but I’ll use it maybe some day... The odds of an anemone living in a package of “live sand” in a bag, enduring the crushing sand movement of transport, and surviving, and then growing a year+ later, only to be found, then go from 1/4” to 1/2” in one week, IMO very low chances. But anything’s possible in saltwater and the Creator has an uncanny way of making the impossible happen. If it came from that bag of sand, and I’m seeing them float in my tank, logically I would expect to see at least one more somewhere that resembles the one I found, and I could only find that one in my sump, IMO looks similar, but still a bit different. That, plus this one that’s in the Tupperware likes light and react to it. Ball anemone I have shrunk up with light, and the ball anemone that are bigger have way skinnier tentacles even though it’s 10x bigger. I don’t have any brown gigs, so good odds that the offspring will be two toned, like the one in the container shows. I don’t see many ball anemones, I had to hunt my sump for one.

This is not what I imagined a baby gig would look like at this size. I’m torn, logically it can’t be anything but a gig, but I’m still in disbelief. I’m the last I feel prepared to deal with this, if you can’t tell by my Tupperware container with magnets lol. I thought Orion or Dnak would be the first, not me. You guys have too many fish that snack on them lol.

I suppose I’ve learned one thing the past month. Baby gigs = fish and pod food.

All that said, I’m pretty certain this really is a baby gig. The tents aren’t as skinny as ball anemone. Something to keep in mind, wheat and tears look identical for a long time growing next to each other, for a time you can’t tell them apart... but eventually you can. Time will tell here too.
Here’s tonight’s pics. I fed it tonight. Also moved it onto a bigger pebble tonight.

 

[Taylor t]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Another month or less I’m thinking it should be obvious.

 

[Taylor t]

Gosh. I go back and forth. After I look at those ball anemones 29bansaireef posted again, it sure does look like those, just with more color. There must be some types of ball anemone that need light? But I still can’t make sense of all the others floating I see without a population to multiply from.

 

[OrionN]

Keep on feeding him.

 

[gig 'em]

I feel like only time will tell, keep feeding it and see if it starts to resemble a gig. I haven't been able to spot any of my ball anemones that look like yours to take a photo of yet, but as soon as one pops up I'll do my best to get a shot of it.

 

[Taylor t]

Kind of discouraging. I stopped by the tank early this morning before any lights and searched for some bulb anemone. I could only find a few in the sump, none in the DT. 2 days ago I sucked one off the blue gig tip. It was attached with a 1/8” long snot string so I though what the heck throw it in a container in the sump and add a spot. This morning I saw this. Apparently bulb anemone have no trouble touching gig tents, it was open and happy this morning. I can’t understand where all these bulb anemone came from.

 

[Taylor t]

Fed the first one tonight. Lost most of its color but eats like a champ.

I also sucked a few blobs out of the purple gig. It’s got a lot of blobs in a lot of tentacles.

 

[D-Nak]

I'm still hopeful. I think all of us here are hoping it's a baby gig. Please keep the photos coming.

 

[29bonsaireef]

It's strange how the tentacles stay retracted.. I wonder if that's just a reaction to light exposure. Have you tried looking at that one at night with a flashlight? Might help with ID.

 

[Taylor t]

I haven’t looked at night. I don’t live here, it’s at my shop and I only stop here once a day for a few minutes to dose DT, except when I carve out time (like today) to stay longer which is rare. The more I look at it, the more I think it’s a bulb anemone, but time will tell for sure. I’m not going to feed it anymore. It’s in a 10 gallon I finally got around to setting up today. Don’t want to compromise water quality feeding a pest, but I’ll give it a couple more weeks under lights before it goes bye. I want to be certain, sometimes it shows behavior and qualities of gig, but now appears to have totally bleached the disk, here goes the transparent transformation into a bulb anemone lol. Using the old reef led lights I made 10 years ago with known distance and spectrum, and certain that the distance is good for prospering gigs. No pumps to worry about, only airstone with valve for bubble adjust.

9 candidates total
(1) bulb anemone on small rock
(1) I (bulb also?) found with snot string on blue gig
(7) I sucked through tentacles 3 days ago.
More will be added, but if they don’t take, I don’t want to keep sucking them from mama. I’ll try another round if these all fail, they’ve all been sitting in a stagnant Tupperware container in the sump for 3 days only getting 1 water change daily. My brother (business partner I share shop with) wants to help me set up a 75 the gigs used to be in and plumb it to the 125, then I could transfer the rock mama is on and easily maintain a bare bottom, and only add enough flow for mama to be happy leaving the other side with very low flow for settling, and evict all spotted pods. This would be ideal but realistically can’t happen for a couple months at least.

7 will be certain known if they live, and I can tell which ones are which because the 2 anemones are planted and open. If I see 3 open, known. Last pic the egg is attached with a little snot string to the glass bottom. I took another from a blue gig and it’s still morphing from round to oval after 3 days in the sump. In the past they don’t last much longer than that but I never had a tank set up for them like I do now. Wish me luck!

 

[Taylor t]

I have a concern on the biological level doing this, the thing you can’t test for-bacteria/fungus. Today I made 10 gallons of new water, added it to the 125. Then waited a half hour, and filled the 10 gallon with water from the 125. I have plenty of live rock I could add, but then I’m back at square one with pods. I have a garbage can with rick that’s been cooking for a year and a half, but that may have pods in it too. So I’m hoping to go with my gut when tI change water, I think DT water might be better suited for these instead of virgin saltwater. Any thoughts on water source through this process? I typically go with my gut and it’s usually pretty good, but last time I raised anything wet was decades ago and cichlids. My brain isn’t in this stuff right now, other fires to tend to lol so any advice is welcome if I do something dumb or skip over something. I’m hoping I don’t have to change the water for a week but fungus on discus eggs spread like crazy overnight, that’s kind of my fear. Suppose I could crank up the airstone but then I’ll lose track of who came from who, besides the 2 bulbs...

 

[Taylor t]

Back to square one. Bummer. You guys nailed it. Looks like it’s the dreaded pest. Got a pic this morning with lights out. I think this seals the deal. I can’t believe it was so colorful before lights were added, and expanded initially with light. It’s banished to the sump. At least I have another tank set up to play with now. The little things I sucked out of the tentacles made the 10 gallon cloudy by morning. I think it needs time to support little stuff, more aging to the ten gallon. Still have them in there, I didn’t have time to change the water which it needs.

 

[TonysReef]

Well this thread took an unfortunate turn.

On the other hand, we have that little pest to thank for you finally setting up a tank to attempt to raise proper gig babies.

So hopefully soon you manage to pull this off for real.

 

[flsalty]

I don't think of ball anemones as a "dreaded pest".

 

[Taylor t]

I don't think of ball anemones as a "dreaded pest".

Lol I don’t think they are, if they were a pest I should have tons of them, and I don’t. Or maybe I do and don’t know it. Ignorance is bliss. I can’t believe the color it had when I first found it! It was eating and expanding with light the first week. Had light spots underside. Then it lost color and stopped expanding with light. I have transparent ones in my sump, never imagined they’d have color. I thought for sure it was given the inhabitants are gigs and aptasia, I didn’t know ball anemone had color. I thought they were all clear nocturnal pests. This time, everything I have in the 10 gallon has been sucked through tips so origin is certain. Im going to do daily 5 gallon water swaps, feed the DT skimmer with yesterday’s water and refill using DT water everyday.

The hardest part now, I have a half dozen I sucked out of mamma, it’s hard to resist sucking as many as possible. I’m in the learning curve though. Not all of them look the same. Some came out as a complete round green egg, no movement, I put 2 of these in. Some come out milky in color like a miniature grain of rice but with a dark spot inside on one side and these morph from round to oval, I think there’s 5-6 of these I put in there. Others come out in globs of what I think are mensural filliments that are part of mamma, I think that’s what’s making the water cloud overnight, I just tossed all these. I’m narrowing down what I believe is viable. I would hope with the speed at which gigs grow they should be changing within a couple weeks. Wish me luck.

 

[Taylor t]

Well this thread took an unfortunate turn.

On the other hand, we have that little pest to thank for you finally setting up a tank to attempt to raise proper gig babies.

So hopefully soon you manage to pull this off for real.

Yes, it wouldn’t be set up right now otherwise.

 

[flsalty]

Lol I don’t think they are, if they were a pest I should have tons of them, and I don’t. Or maybe I do and don’t know it. Ignorance is bliss. I can’t believe the color it had when I first found it! It was eating and expanding with light the first week. Had light spots underside. Then it lost color and stopped expanding with light. I have transparent ones in my sump, never imagined they’d have color. I thought for sure it was given the inhabitants are gigs and aptasia, I didn’t know ball anemone had color. I thought they were all clear nocturnal pests. This time, everything I have in the 10 gallon has been sucked through tips so origin is certain. Im going to do daily 5 gallon water swaps, feed the DT skimmer with yesterday’s water and refill using DT water everyday.

The hardest part now, I have a half dozen I sucked out of mamma, it’s hard to resist sucking as many as possible. I’m in the learning curve though. Not all of them look the same. Some came out as a complete round green egg, no movement, I put 2 of these in. Some come out milky in color like a miniature grain of rice but with a dark spot inside on one side and these morph from round to oval, I think there’s 5-6 of these I put in there. Others come out in globs of what I think are mensural filliments that are part of mamma, I think that’s what’s making the water cloud overnight, I just tossed all these. I’m narrowing down what I believe is viable. I would hope with the speed at which gigs grow they should be changing within a couple weeks. Wish me luck.

Well you could have a bunch in the rockwork. They are NPS, so they could be buried. They are coralimorphs. Not sure how they reproduce.

Good luck with the gigs. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens.