Zooxanthellae Transplant for Bleached Anemones

[TerraFerma]

Outstanding!

 

[Seabiscuit]

Anemones and other photosynthetic corals obtain their complement of Zooxanthellae from the water column in the wild. In many case , with stress Anemones can completely loose all of their Zooxanthellae. In case like this, we can jump-start the process by feeding them with live viable Zooxanthellae from another animal of the same species if at all possible. I have done multiple procedure like this in my 40 years of keeping reef aquarium. I like to document this here. This tread should help many reefers, some how ended up with a bleached anemone.
Tridacna farmers also feed new young clams by pulverize and adult clam and mixed it in the water of baby clam tanks. Baby clams will take these Zooxanthellae internally and establish their own Zooxanthellae population. This is a very straight forward procedure and very easy to perform as documented below.

1. Below is a small completely Bleached S. gigantea anemone I got from Petco. He is healthy in every way except completely bleached.

2. Obtained a tentacle from my healthy donor. Since my anemone is so small, I will just use a small piece of fish, and just use 1 tentacle. Gigantea are really sticky so getting a tentacles or two is not difficult. Zooxanthellae are puny little organism. We need to keep the condition stable for them to survive. If we don't they just die and we can do all of these for nothing. I learn to keep the tentacle in most solution. If the salt solution just dry out a little, the change in salinity will kill the Zooxanthellae. Keep them in small amount of tank water and use it quickly. Imagine just 20% of a tiny amount of water evaporated, the resulting shift in salinity of the salt water left behind can be drastic indeed.

3. Stuff the tentacle into a piece of food, salmon in this case. As with salinity, temperature shock can do the Zooxnthellae in. I would soak the salmon in tank water to keep the temperature up to tank temperature. Still cold or still frozen Salmon will not do. The ice crystal in the salmon can dilute the salt water in the tentacle, the temperature shock can kill the Zooxanthellae. Both of these problem can be solve by soak the salmon, or other fish in tank water until temperature equalized.

4. Picture of my anemone before I feed him the Zooxznthallae laced food was the first picture above. Bellow are pictures of him eating the Zooxanthellae food.

5. After about 2 weeks, you should see the first sign of Zooxanthellae repopulate the tentacles of the bleached anemone. It looks like the tentacles are getting "dirty" as show in the picture below

6. More Zooxanthellae

7. Finally a fully healthy S. gigantea

Hope this article can help some reefers rescues and bring a bleached anemone back to health.

Wow! I thought that bleached corals and anemones didn't have a second chance. What was the process of how you first thought of doing this? I'll remember this method if my coral every gets bleached. Thanks for sharing.

 

[VR28man]

this article thread is outstanding. Thanks, @OrionN

 

[Reef Republica]

Thank you for sharing this! I am excited to give this a try, should the need ever arise. It is so great to see advancement being made in the care for these amazing critters instead of simply saying its impossible.

 

[OrionN]

So with bta I just nip a tentacle off and feed it to my bleached bta? (That simple I know about keeping the temps the same and the salinity etc) can they regain their zooxanthellea just by adding a healthy not bleached nem to the tank?

I think I am a bit late in answering this. I was really busy and depressed with Covid and let my tank slide for a few years. Did not have time to be online and did not keep up.

Bleached anemone will pick up zooxanthellae from the environment, if available. Feeding them with tentacles of healthy anemone will just give them a large number of zooxanthellae in on shot and help them recover.

 

[OrionN]

old post, i know, but i had a question about this.
I wanted to try this out with my Gig(recipient) and BTA(donor). What kind of reaction can I expect from the BTA when i cut a tentacle? I'd love to know how it will react so that I know what to look out for if any problems arise.

Thanks

There will not be any "reaction". Zooxanthellae are symbiots. Fail transplant is the worst out come. If this is the case then the bleached anemone will just use the tissue as food.

I guess there is one possible bad out come. If you feed a bleached anemone with part of an infected anemone, then you can start infection in the healthy but bleached anemone. I am sure no one would cut part of a sick anemone and feed it to another anemone.

 

[OrionN]

Is it possible to jump start zooxanthellae repopulation of bleached euphyllia by feeding excreted waste from another euphyllia? I’ve done microscope of expelled waste and it contains zooxanthellae. Thanks!

Each coral, clams or anemone have a complement of zooxanthellae in it's tissue. I think which zooxanthellae species and strain depends on the specific species of the host, and the condition it is under.

IMO (opinion only) excreted waste of a coral may not have a large amount of viable zooxanthellae. This may or may not work. It will take examination of these waste to see what is in it, and if there is any viable zooxanthellae in it.

 

[OrionN]

My black widow lost its white webbing on the base. Is it alleopathy or water issue. In same tank as my rainbow bta.

IMO, I do not think alleopathy is possible between strains of BTA

 

[VR28man]

I was really busy and depressed with Covid and let my tank slide for a few years. Did not have time to be online and did not keep up.

Sorry to hear this @OrionN. I am glad you are back!

And actually a followon question: it would seem then the 'nem would take whatever zooxanthellae is in the donated tentacle? So it's probably best to get a tentacle from someone's Colorado Sunburst.