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Aiptasia? (beginner question)


tomduud

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Just noticed these two in my nano reef. As I'm beginner I can not identify this as a aiptasia or something else since I have not seen live aiptasia ever:). I hope my image is clear enough.I think the little white "balls" are tanks sand. Thanks in advance.

 

post-85241-0-02532700-1419773879_thumb.jpg

 

br, MjP

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Yep, kill it now before it gets out of control. Kalk paste, lemon juice, aptasia x, boiling water, peppermint shrimp, Berghia nudis, burn it, hydrogen peroxide...all will kill it

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First of all thanks for the quick answers. I will try to nuke them with Joe's juice which I have in hand.

 

Camera I borrowed from work is equipt with 100mm macro lens and extension tube and it shows details quite well. I used tripod and only tanks light. Fixed color balance and exposure in Lightroom and removed sensor dust in photoshop. Camera sensor was quite dirty so there is lot of small black dots around the image even I tried to fix them in PS :). If you like my photo here, there is more photos are posted my tank build thread over here.

 

 

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I'd say nuke them....I don't think those are hydroids cause those usually grow on the glass and they're much smaller. Props for the really nice picture it definitely helps to ID things when it's not taken with a cell phone camera. :P

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Have you noticed them spreading? With something this cool it seems worth it to hold off killing them for a little bit to see if they are bad or not

 

I have only noticed these two. So I won't nuke them at the moment. So keep suggestions coming what are they. They look similar to what Pinner Reef said (curly-cue anemones) but I not sure since they are so tiny at the moment.

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Hmm... hard to tell but my first reaction is that they're not aptasia. Probably more along the lines of a hydroid.

 

Have you tried touching them? Take something and graze a tentacle, does it close up?

 

It almost looks like it has a sand tube around the base? That would seem to indicate a worm, maybe hydroids can have those also?

 

Keep a close eye on it.. If it begins to change, multiply, or grow much then it's probably aptasia and as already said needs to be taken out now (and there's probably others in the tank you haven't seen yet). If it's a hydroid then it may sprout another head on the same stalk, last for a little bit, and then go away if you have some sort of mechanical filtration.

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I keep aiptasia, they barely reproduce unless you bother them, otherwise they just get bigger. I make mine spread by damaging them. When in doubt let em live.

 

Aiptasia also have only moved for me when the environment is bad, they usually like the spots they pick.

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First off that is a REALLY nice picture. Second off I haven't seen these. It doesn't look to me like a aiptasia.

 

 

Have you noticed them spreading? With something this cool it seems worth it to hold off killing them for a little bit to see if they are bad or not

 

Seconded. These are not aiptasias

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I keep aiptasia, they barely reproduce unless you bother them, otherwise they just get bigger. I make mine spread by damaging them. When in doubt let em live.

 

Aiptasia also have only moved for me when the environment is bad, they usually like the spots they pick.

Yeah don't listen to this guy...

 

Sorry amphipod but it seems like in every post you present your own experiences as a rule. Replying with your own experience is fine, but honestly giving someone a reason to keep aptasia because it barely reproduces (in your tank) is bad. There are few, if any hard and fast rules in the reef tank hobby. There are multiple articles written by experienced biologists that suggest aptasia should be dealt with quickly. While it may not reproduce much in your tank nobody should make the assumption that it will behave the same for them. I myself had aptasia at one point (came in on LR) and it reproduced quickly, doubling in population over about 2 months (from 10-15 to around 30). In my case I decided to wait until they got big enough to kill by injection and by waiting they continued to multiply - I did not bother them other than injecting large ones. Eventually I had to take overly drastic action though that could have been avoided by taking more drastic actions sooner. Maybe you have something in your tank that's eating them? I definitely did not.

 

All I'm saying is that when you post your experiences you should give some additional information... Such as "I keep aptasia because so far they haven't reproduced enough to concern me yet, and they haven't popped up next to any expensive corals yet". This at least gives a reader the sense of why you're keeping the aptasia vs. someone reading your comment and expecting an aptasia in their tank to never reproduce - and then proceed to wonder why their tank is now covered in aptasia and their corals are dead.

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Yeah don't listen to this guy... Sorry amphipod but it seems like in every post you present your own experiences as a rule. Replying with your own experience is fine, but honestly giving someone a reason to keep aptasia because it barely reproduces (in your tank) is bad. There are few, if any hard and fast rules in the reef tank hobby. There are multiple articles written by experienced biologists that suggest aptasia should be dealt with quickly. While it may not reproduce much in your tank nobody should make the assumption that it will behave the same for them. I myself had aptasia at one point (came in on LR) and it reproduced quickly, doubling in population over about 2 months (from 10-15 to around 30). In my case I decided to wait until they got big enough to kill by injection and by waiting they continued to multiply - I did not bother them other than injecting large ones. Eventually I had to take overly drastic action though that could have been avoided by taking more drastic actions sooner. Maybe you have something in your tank that's eating them? I definitely did not. All I'm saying is that when you post your experiences you should give some additional information... Such as "I keep aptasia because so far they haven't reproduced enough to concern me yet, and they haven't popped up next to any expensive corals yet". This at least gives a reader the sense of why you're keeping the aptasia vs. someone reading your comment and expecting an aptasia in their tank to never reproduce - and then proceed to wonder why their tank is now covered in aptasia and their corals are dead.
true I should have specified that it was from my experience. Nothing eats my aiptasia, I just feed them weekly or monthly and they seem so harmless. I can understand fish death from larger aiptasia being how they expand greatly to what I've seen up to twice to almost 3 times original size to eat pieces of chopped chicken.

 

The harm is possible, the potential damage is severe especially when they get stressed in my experience.

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Dr.Brain Coral

these guys actually look like little tube anemones. I had some in my tank for awhile that came in as HHs, but they eventually disappeared.

That is exactly what I was thinking!!!! I thought the way the mouth looked and the sand around the base, that was my first thought. I couldn't find anything about tiny tube anemones though so I held off posting

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Thanks for you all for great tips. I let them grow and see how they form out. It seems that they can go back to live rock holes and appear when they want (I missed that first one for a day and now it is back:)).

 

But they look lot of what I found from Hypostatics photo on far right (where they look white). Maybe they are these. Do you know exact species or what they are called?

 

Frankdr:

I'm still learning how to photograph tanks since lots of photos goes to the trashcan directly:) and that glass box makes life quite hard. But seriously I need to clean that camera sensor:) and try to use external lights as well (now all light comes from tanks light which leaves lots of unwanted shadows under the corals rocks etc and the light direction is little bit too straight from the top). I think what helped most is use the tripod and self timer when taking macro images. I'll try to take some images with my canon ixus as well to see how it performs against that DSLR I'm using.

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