Carpet strange mouth behavior

[Tango451]

It is going to be night 4 tonight of treatment. The haddoni has its foot planted on its own, have not seen it deflate one time, and mouth was inverted this morning and went back in to loose closed when lights first went on.

The mouth has closed a few times but never very tight and normally you can see white/ it is open as a circle.

It closes the most when a water change happens and when zoo pellets are produced and sitting on top of the mouth.

Every time I go to remove the pellets with the pipette (I am not blowing water on the anemone or anything), within minutes the mouth is open again and open a little worse (more like the hollow look about the size of a dime/ nickel).

But when I leave the zoo pellets sitting on the mouth, it is closed the most.

Would you continue to remove zoo pellets whenever you see them or leave them on his mouth since there is some correlation between a closed mouth and zoo pellets?

And about to be night 4, would you increase the dosage of cipro by double if no vast improvement has been seen? Usually by now, in my experiences, my haddonis mouth's would be pretty much closed, maybe just a little open.

[Tango451]

Also, a second question.

I have a qt with live rock and corals. The carpet that turned out to be sick was in here and then removed to ht for treatment. I eventually want to add the live rock and corals to my dt so my question is can whatever is infecting the carpet pass with the rock/corals to the dt and if so what steps should I take to prevent my healthy anemones from becoming sick?

[Daniel62]

I would keep sucking the pellets off. As for the dt being affected. I say no. I have pulled sick nems out of my dt, treated them, then placed them back in the tank, with no reinfection. I would keep the dosage the same until you do the full treatment cycle. You may need to use a different med.

[OrionN]

They will do much better if you have moderate flow over them. I would have enough flow to blow these discharge from the mouth.

[Tango451]

They will do much better if you have moderate flow over them. I would have enough flow to blow these discharge from the mouth.

Now that you say it I think that could be part of the problem. I am going to re-position the power head a little. On day 5 of treatment (today( insides were out and had zoo specs all over - I cleaned it all with a pipette and gently sucked them off. The mouth still does not remained closed for maybe more than 30 minutes at a time and usually only closes up after I am cleaning the ht or getting the specs off of the mouth/ oral disc.

Should I continue the current treatment of 250 mg cipro per 10 gallons, double cipro, or switch to bactrim ds (septra)?

I have not witnesses a single deflate.

Salinity is always right between 1.025 and 1.026
Temperature is constant at 79


I would keep sucking the pellets off. As for the dt being affected. I say no. I have pulled sick nems out of my dt, treated them, then placed them back in the tank, with no reinfection. I would keep the dosage the same until you do the full treatment cycle. You may need to use a different med.


I have been continuing to do so (too hard to just let the collect without removing them) and for the nems yes, after treatment I place them back in, but the live rock in the qt system never gets antibiotic added to it which is why I am wondering if I could make all my carpets in my dt sick if I were to add that rock/ coral to the main tank

[OrionN]

I am not sure what you mean by "the inside is out". If you mean the anemone is inverting then you not doing well and the treatment is not working. Post a picture.

[Tango451]

I am not sure what you mean by "the inside is out". If you mean the anemone is inverting then you not doing well and the treatment is not working. Post a picture.

Yes, inverting the insides out. Once I started cleaning off all the zoo specs (some of them were on there pretty well) and gently pushed water with the pipette it started to close immediately and then did. Unfortunately, did not get a pic when the mouth was inverted but this is him now on day 5 of treatment (usually by this time, the ones I treat mouths are at least always partially closed or fully closed)
Picture coming in 30 seconds

[Tango451]

Here is a pic of the mouth up close as it is right now

[OrionN]

I would change antibiotic if the anemone is inverting at 5 days

[Tango451]

And whole anemone

Mouth looks like this 70-80% of time

[OrionN]

Take a picture of the entire anemone

[Tango451]

I would change antibiotic if the anemone is inverting at 5 days

Is sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim 800/160 mg TB substituted for Bactrim DS (800-160mg) tablets, the appropriate alternative? And if so, dosing is 800/160 mg per every 10 gallons right?


And as I was writing to you the mouth just closed: here is a pic of it just now vs two minutes ago

[OrionN]

He does not look bad. The best he look should be better tha. The day before and the worst he look should be better tha. The worst yesterday. F this is not clearly the case I would switch antibiotic.
The dose is correct

[Tango451]

He does not look bad. The best he look should be better tha. The day before and the worst he look should be better tha. The worst yesterday. F this is not clearly the case I would switch antibiotic.
The dose is correct


Other than the mouth I think he looks great and it being inverted today on the 5th day did not make me feel very confident, but when he reacted and closed it fast it made me feel a bit better.

The thing is there really hasn't been any truly noticeable improvement. Mouth has been like this most of the time since day 1, but I have not seen him deflate.

After seeing the pics, if it was your anemone, would you keep going with cipro 250 mg or would you switch it tonight to the bactrim ds (septra) 800/160? And if yes you would switch antibiotics, do I finish off the last 2-3 days on the new antibiotic or use the new antibiotic starting tonight for 7 days?

[OrionN]

I would change antibiotic. Best of luck

[Tango451]

I would change antibiotic. Best of luck

Going to tonight at lights out. Thank you Minh! And by the way, the gigs are looking great and almost done with their cipro treatment

[Tango451]

Also is it ok for septra/ Bactrim ds to not dissolve fully? Unlike cipro, there are white small pieces of the antibiotic that will not dissolve (rubbed them between my fingers, put the powerhead around everywhere etc and still white small pieces from the antibiotic. My only concern would be the anemone is not getting the proper amount of antibiotic since it's not all dissolving

Is there a septra with hcl to help with dissolving?


Also put it in a slightly larger power head for a little more flow

Here he is tonight, and all the white dots/ small white things are pieces of the antibiotic that won't dissolve (it's been 4 hours already)

[OrionN]

The antibiotic will dissolves given a little more time. Don't worry about it. He looks OK.

[Tango451]

The antibiotic will dissolves given a little more time. Don't worry about it. He looks OK.



The mouth looks 100% better but the only thing is he is loosing batches of tentacles and is now bald in several spots. If the mouth looks completely Normal and he had 5 days of cipro, 1 day of Sentra, and not deflate shovel I stop antibiotic or is he losing tentacles/ going bald for other reasons? (There is egg crate blocking the power head so it can't be that )

[OrionN]

Pictures?

[Tango451]

Pictures?

Here is a pic of one of the patches. You can see two- the big one on the disc and a small one on the edge. There are a bunch all over. Not sure what is causing this. I am hoping they will grow back overtime. I used septra last night as well. So now 7 nights
Of treatment - 5 with cipro, 2 with Septra. Should I go one more night on Septra or stop treatment tonight?

[m0nkie]

IME. one of my red carpet started going bald from the mouth area... it was half bald before slowing recovering in my tank and grew all the tentacles back. I think it's from the expelling.. basically they are losing body mass. (kinda like BTA losing tentacles). I didn't do anything. Just improved water quality.

as for mouth kinda open.. I have noticed that their mouth opens more when they sit in a cup upright. With mouth facing ceiling. Do you have enough flow over it? Whenever I lean the cup down, mouth facing the sides, they tend to close it tight...

[Tango451]

IME. one of my red carpet started going bald from the mouth area... it was half bald before slowing recovering in my tank and grew all the tentacles back. I think it's from the expelling.. basically they are losing body mass. (kinda like BTA losing tentacles). I didn't do anything. Just improved water quality.

as for mouth kinda open.. I have noticed that their mouth opens more when they sit in a cup upright. With mouth facing ceiling. Do you have enough flow over it? Whenever I lean the cup down, mouth facing the sides, they tend to close it tight...

By cup do you mean the shape of the carpet or an actual cup? I recently replaced the powerhead with a slightly larger one and either septra has caused it to look much better, the extra water flow, or both.

And yes, I am hoping he will regenerate all of his tentacles. That happened to my red once but only on the edge and they did grow back after a few months. I just have never seen a haddoni loose patches all over from edges, to center, to sides, etc. It is still in treatment.

I am unsure if I should continue treating it with septra/ for how many days is protocol after switching antibiotics if there has been no deflation. Still producing zoo but less (There is some on the mouth now that I will take out tonight during the water change - mouth is currently closed).

[vhuang168]

Slightly OT but was wondering where you got the Septra from?

[OrionN]

He actually looks good. These will recover quickly once he is healthy

[Tango451]

Slightly OT but was wondering where you got the Septra from?


No worries, and from my dog's vetenarian. Strange though as he will not write a script for cipro for the anemones but did for septra and to be exact it wa sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim 800/160 mg TB substituted for Bactrim DS (800-160mg)

[Tango451]

He actually looks good. These will recover quickly once he is healthy


I am glad to hear and I thought so too. The improvement after switching to septra is amazing. And when you switch antibiotcics how long do you continue treatment on the new antibiotic/ when should I stop. Currently it is 5 nights cipro and 3 nights septra

[OrionN]

I would treat for 7 days with new antibiotic