EMeyer Posted October 30, 2019 Share Posted October 30, 2019 This is an odd one! Is anyone importing corals? I would like to take a quick, non-invasive swab of them on arrival if so (pre-dip), to test their microbiomes. I am chasing a newly discovered parasite, which is present in 1/3 of corals worldwide. I am testing the hypothesis that this contributes to the observation that wild corals are not as hardy in captivity as aquacultured corals. We've detected it in some tanks in captivity. Now I want to know, is it more abundant in wild corals than tank-raised? (see this discussion for more details) If anyone is importing wild colonies these days, please get in touch... Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
obrien.david.j Posted October 30, 2019 Share Posted October 30, 2019 Are you ask for imported SPS only, LPS only, or either? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EMeyer Posted October 31, 2019 Author Share Posted October 31, 2019 Good question. Its found in lots of corals (51 different genera so far) but the best evidence is in Acropora. So SPS would be the most interesting. But really, anything that is also available in an aquacultured form would be useful. I have some wild vs cultured zoas I'm going to test and wouldnt mind adding to the sample. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pdxmonkeyboy Posted October 31, 2019 Share Posted October 31, 2019 Reach out to cuttlefish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadAShark Posted October 31, 2019 Share Posted October 31, 2019 (edited) I’d be interested in attempting a culture of this bacteria as well. I assume since its genus is Aquarickettsia, it is perhaps a rickettsial bacteria? Running some pcr on it and testing for some common markers that could suggest antibiotics or potential antibiotic developments would be interesting. I wonder what would be the best way to culture them? Perhaps a hardy enough coral like some blue clovers or xenia? If you do find some, please let me know as well. I was originally going to import some wholesale mariculture sps to do some microbiome research but Aquarickettsia seems like an interesting lead to do work on. Especially since rickettsial organisms are so hard to treat in the first place in humans and other animals. Notably, I’d wonder if doxycycline or chloramphenicol would have a positive effect on corals infected with this bacteria? Though that would moreso be applicable as a captive treatment. Edited October 31, 2019 by LadAShark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EMeyer Posted October 31, 2019 Author Share Posted October 31, 2019 (edited) They proposed a new species (rhoweri), genus (Aquarickettsia) and family (Midichloriaceae) for this bug. Within the order Rickettsiales, as you inferred. (Side note, see what they did there? Midichlorians.) I agree, Chloramphenicol and Doxycycline are on the list to try. They work for some other diseases in the rickettsiales. I read some suggestions that rifampicin and tetracyclin may be less harsh but all 4 are on the list. Most of these endosymbiotic bacteria are difficult or impossible to culture out of their hosts, but this bug is common in sediment too.Perhaps it is culturable. My hope is to get some infected coral, and infect an experimental tank or two with it. I have one wholesaler account, if you have some wholesaler contacts lets talk! Maybe we could split an order? I think wild imported corals are our best shot at getting our hands on this bug. since we have no data on its prevalence in tank corals but a big dataset showing its in 1/3 of wild corals... I have noticed odd behavior with wild zoas too (i.e. they sometimes have to adjust to captivity before they start growing explosively like tank raised zoas). I'm gonna check some of these too. If it grows in zoas it'd be trivial to culture, and since zoas are essentially immortal I'd rather grow it in them than acros. The study found it in multiple non-coral Cnidarians but I havent looked into which ones yet. Edited October 31, 2019 by EMeyer 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadAShark Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 10 hours ago, EMeyer said: They proposed a new species (rhoweri), genus (Aquarickettsia) and family (Midichloriaceae) for this bug. Within the order Rickettsiales, as you inferred. (Side note, see what they did there? Midichlorians.) I agree, Chloramphenicol and Doxycycline are on the list to try. They work for some other diseases in the rickettsiales. I read some suggestions that rifampicin and tetracyclin may be less harsh but all 4 are on the list. Most of these endosymbiotic bacteria are difficult or impossible to culture out of their hosts, but this bug is common in sediment too.Perhaps it is culturable. My hope is to get some infected coral, and infect an experimental tank or two with it. I have one wholesaler account, if you have some wholesaler contacts lets talk! Maybe we could split an order? I think wild imported corals are our best shot at getting our hands on this bug. since we have no data on its prevalence in tank corals but a big dataset showing its in 1/3 of wild corals... I have noticed odd behavior with wild zoas too (i.e. they sometimes have to adjust to captivity before they start growing explosively like tank raised zoas). I'm gonna check some of these too. If it grows in zoas it'd be trivial to culture, and since zoas are essentially immortal I'd rather grow it in them than acros. The study found it in multiple non-coral Cnidarians but I havent looked into which ones yet. I unfortunately do not have direct wholesaler contacts, I just had some wholesalers in mind, but I would still be interested in splitting an order. I’m thinking it might not grow in zoas, but if it does then we have an even more serious problem on our hands in the ocean, as that would mean that anemones are potentially susceptible to infection (since zoas are just clonal anemones of a sort). Do you have the study on hand? I’d love to look it over. I have some other colleagues (in various fields of biochemistry, microbiology, and molecular biology) who I could perhaps get interested in the research as well. Personally it’s outside my field (medicine), but close enough in terms of rickettsiales that I an actually very interested. Another thing worth checking is the Oregon coast corals. There’s a seller hereabouts that sells coldwater corals from the Oregon coast, it is worthwhile to perhaps collect some specimens here as well as some of the characteristic oregon coast clonal anemones as I suspect that if it affects zoas, there’s a high likelihood that they would be affected as well. On the topic of being found in sediment; that’s actually very interesting. Rickettsiales are obligate intracellular parasites... if they could live extracellularly that would be quite a disaster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EMeyer Posted November 1, 2019 Author Share Posted November 1, 2019 (edited) The presence is sediment samples may very well reflect its presence in micro invertebrates rather than a truly free living stage. The study is open access, available at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41396-019-0482-0.pdf As for species distributions, I'm embarrassed to say I scoured the supplementary info before I realized its shown right in Figure 7. Here it is - the corals and non corals where it is found, arranged in hobbyist terms. This is not all of them, just some of those commonly in the hobby. SPS - Acropora, Montipora, Pocillopora, Seriatopora, Stylophora, Porites LPS - Pavona, Turbinaria, Galaxea, Acathastrea, Cyphastrea, Favites, Platygyra, Leptastrea Soft corals - Rhodactis, Sinularia, Sarcophyton, Palythoa Anemones - Heteractis, Aipasia Its friggin everywhere. ... honestly, based on the ridiculously huge divergence times between these groups, I have to conclude this is as widely distributed in Cnidarians as Wolbachia is in Ecdysozoans, and potentially as important for understanding the biology of the group. This was a good time to get into aquarium microbiology, I think. Edited November 1, 2019 by EMeyer 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trailermann Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 It is nice to be reminded how little I know in this big world. Thanks to both of you. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadAShark Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 3 hours ago, EMeyer said: The presence is sediment samples may very well reflect its presence in micro invertebrates rather than a truly free living stage. The study is open access, available at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41396-019-0482-0.pdf As for species distributions, I'm embarrassed to say I scoured the supplementary info before I realized its shown right in Figure 7. Here it is - the corals and non corals where it is found, arranged in hobbyist terms. This is not all of them, just some of those commonly in the hobby. SPS - Acropora, Montipora, Pocillopora, Seriatopora, Stylophora, Porites LPS - Pavona, Turbinaria, Galaxea, Acathastrea, Cyphastrea, Favites, Platygyra, Leptastrea Soft corals - Rhodactis, Sinularia, Sarcophyton, Palythoa Anemones - Heteractis, Aipasia Its friggin everywhere. ... honestly, based on the ridiculously huge divergence times between these groups, I have to conclude this is as widely distributed in Cnidarians as Wolbachia is in Ecdysozoans, and potentially as important for understanding the biology of the group. This was a good time to get into aquarium microbiology, I think. I see. Oregon coast anemones (namely the giant green and the aggregating) share the same superfamily as Heteractis, as they are both Anthopleura. There is very good reason to believe they could also carry the disease, especially since Aipasia is even a classification up above that. And since palythoans can be infected I’d venture to say that your hypothesis in regards to zoanthids is likely correct, if not almost all cnidarians as you suggest. Given that’s the case, exploration as to exactly what can and cannot be infected is worthwhile, and upon detection of those that cannot, exploration of their immunology and histochemistry should be undertaken. And given parallel studies that conclude that these are legitimately solely harmful to the cnidarians, it might be worthwhile to consider some widespread gene therapy or the spreading of genetically modified Aquarickettsia immune/resistant corallimorphs if we want to stop or hinder the further destruction of these species. I’ve given the article a short look over but will pore over it tomorrow. In the meanwhile, I will look into collecting some anemones from the coast as well as see if I can get in contact with the seller who sold coldwater/deepwater corals (as a separate path of research) to see if they too are or can be infected. And we should keep in touch in regards to the wholesalers. I know a few hobby sellers (across the USA) who could potentially get me in touch with a wholesaler. What kind of genera and species we’d like should be discussed. Tons of sps? Some more variety? Anyway. We can discuss more tomorrow. And perhaps not in a WTB/WTS thread lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadAShark Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 (edited) 2 hours ago, Trailermann said: It is nice to be reminded how little I know in this big world. Thanks to both of you. Thanks to you for following along this far On another note, if you really cared to, there’s no reason you couldn’t come quite far, even without a degree in these fields. There’s even lots of research that doesn’t need that much deeper knowledge but requires methodical observation, so it’s not hard for people to be of help to ocean research if they really so desired. A lot of this knowledge is just accumulation from both conducting research as well as reading lots of research. Edited November 1, 2019 by LadAShark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trailermann Posted November 2, 2019 Share Posted November 2, 2019 Could I help by ordering a wild SPS or two from CNC? Or if the parasite is present, would my other corals in the QT be in danger? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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