LadAShark

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.

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.

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.

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. 

@Gaidin

did you sell the tank or change your mind on selling it? Sent a pm a day back but didn’t get a reply.

On 10/8/2019 at 4:14 PM, EMeyer said:

Thats an interesting thought. I've always been adamant that since nighttime in the ocean is pitch black, it should be in our tanks too. But perhaps a nightlight is needed to account for the fact that everybody's crammed together in a little box.

For one, moonlight lights the ocean to an extent, for another, these animals wouldn’t be packed so close to an anemone in the wild. Nonetheless, congrats on the sale

5’x2’x2’ is 150 gallons and not 250. Did you make a mistake with the digits or dimensions or is it just a 150?

The easy conversion is width times height times length (all in feet) times 7.5 to get gallons.

To clarify, I would be interested if it is indeed 250

I’d love to have it. 

Is this for a 125g? Or is this for a 55g?

Anyway. Depending on that I might be interested

Interested in getting a miniatus grouper somewhere in the range of a few inches. Might also be interested in a little larger but not sure on that front (would have to feed my small panther grouper more heavily for a a month or two to make him catch up).

share the love

thanks!

24 minutes ago, The ReefBox said:

I’ll bite. I’m calling the number right now 

I called myself a few hours back. He said it was gone.

Oh no! I was so busy it slipped me by 😭

I was about to say, “this sunday? I’ll be there!,” but then I realized “wait a minute, August 11th was last Sunday”

On 8/12/2019 at 8:50 PM, Higher Thinking said:

Well that's lame. Why people think they can escape targeted ads is beyond me. Maybe there's a benefit to trying, not sure.

At any rate, I paid $15 bucks a couple years ago and haven't seen a Tapatalk ad since.

I imagine they'll see a decent drop off in user activity, but it'll slowly rebound as people transition over.

Thanks for the heads up!

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
 

I’ve dropped reef2reef myself due to a different reason: censorship and control surrounding gold sponsors. I had an issue with a gold sponsor and needless to say that is not a fun position to be in. They really do have a pay to win platform going on.

If the deal with lewisriverfisherman falls through, I’d like to take it.

I would like a piece of each as well if there is any unclaimed by now haha.

I’d be interested in taking it. I could probably get it sometime this weekend. PM sent.

1 hour ago, Matteo said:

Anyone want a baby panther grouper? 

Simply want to make sure he goes to big home. He's a baby now in my 55g. Not sure when I'll upgrade but they grow slower so if no takers I'll keep for awhile. 

$30 obo or trade? 

How big is he? I might be interested.

On 7/7/2019 at 1:09 PM, viper55 said:

3 new 20 gallon long tanks for FREE!

are pre-drilled  for overflow and painted ocean blue n sides and back.  They strut new and never had water I just biht too many. Would make hood sump QT tank critter Tank or whatevs you need. FREE today!

Are these still around?

11 hours ago, Lazyreefer said:

Yea that’s what I was thinking but they open up and look fine for a little and they look nothing like the original picture and you can still see most of the rock where as in his pics you can’t see any that the mushrooms are on. I can’t really get much better of a picture then that though of them that’s right up against the glass. Just my thoughts not trying to make a big deal out of it. 

I’m 90% sure it’s the same one, just color is missing before it adapts to your tank.

What size are you thinking?

And what do you mean by “the bug” haha.

I’d love to have some. I’m also in Tigard, pm sent.

Might be interested myself if it isn’t taken.

2 hours ago, TheClark said:

Right!  That was the working theory, so we tried to balance it out with a big mix of diodes.  Exactly why a spectrometer would be handy to test all of that first hand... But I am so outta date since the early DIY LED days.  Nowadays I just buy some Ocean Revives and the coral grows out of the tanks.  Success!  Who needs a spectrometer!!? 

 

People who want to test their lights AND nutrients at the same time with one product, given they have the know-how 😉

9 hours ago, milesmiles902 said:

@TheClark the only question I would have is for @EMeyer

Does this detect the whole visible spectrum or select wavelengths?

I believe for LEDs you should find a spectrometer that scans/detects the entire spectrum at once to get a good profile of the LED, which I imagine you want it for and not specific wavelengths.

The product site says: “Wavelength range: 350-1020 nm.” It has all the various equipment specifications here:

http://vi.raptor.ebaydesc.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemDescV4&item=201962694258&category=185256&pm=1&ds=0&t=1559592426000&ver=0&cspheader=1

8 hours ago, TheClark said:

Interesting!  I have not googled lately... but "back in the day" we were always trying to get our DIY LED spectrums to match T5s.  A spectrometer would have been nice, we just winged it with semi educated guesses!

 

It would be very difficult to ever get LEDs to match T5’s, as T5’s have a wide emission spectrum whereas each LED has a sharp tall peak. See those above spectrum graphs? Imagine LED’s as really sharp, tall, extremely narrow peaks. Whereas T5’s would likely display big hills if you will, not too tall, but very wide and sloping, though even that would change depending on the T5 make and model.