acrozoanthus or aiptasia?
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Topic: acrozoanthus or aiptasia?
Posted By: sshm
Subject: acrozoanthus or aiptasia?
Date Posted: February 14 2006 at 11:22pm
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Hi,
I have a rock that has a lot of tube worms and fan worms and there are these creatures which have a semi transperant stalk and brown tentacles. The tentacles wave only in the current, the texture of the tentacles is smooth and not mottled like the aiptasia. They withdraw fairly quickly if I poke at them, they are pretty small overall. But I am having a tough time identifying them, is there one surefire physical characteristic of the aiptasia that I can use to distinguish? I will try to get a good picture. EDIT: Here are the pictures:    In the last pic above you can see a little one at the bottom of the pic, about a third of the distance from the left of the pic. The stalk of this thing is lighter (in color) than the tentacles. I think there is also a slit like mouth (in the last pic above, look for a slit running from 11o'clock to 4o'clock, in the centre of the thingie). The thing that confuses me is that the tentacles are smooth and not ruffled like an aiptasia's. ------------- http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1157896 - Difficult and special care reef inhabitants |
Replies:
Posted By: Mike Savage
Date Posted: February 14 2006 at 11:41pm
I'd like to know too. Matt had one in his 24G just like you described. We tried to grab it but it retracted too quickly. I was pretty sure it was aiptasia so Zap Gel sealed his tomb.  -------------  |
Posted By: sshm
Date Posted: February 15 2006 at 12:03am
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Post updated with pics. Mike, thats a new technique .
------------- http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1157896 - Difficult and special care reef inhabitants |
Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: February 15 2006 at 12:08am
Sorry, looks like Aiptasia to me. There are several varieties with different characteristics. But don't be too concerned about them. They don't always become a problem. Sometimes they go away because of tank conditions and sometimes all it takes is a cute little Peppermint Shrimp to keep them in check. ------------- Reefkeeping Tips, & quick, easy setup tricks: www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244 Pay it forward - become a paid WMAS member 
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Posted By: sshm
Date Posted: February 15 2006 at 12:18am
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Thanks Mark. Thats what I thought as
well, but the fact that there are 3 of them in a rock covered with fan worms and tube worm skeletons made me wonder. I just did another observation, I slowly pulled the rock out of the water while focussing on how it behaved. It just flopped over when it came out of the water, like it didnt withdraw into the crevice its sticking out of or anything. There are 3 of them (that I can see) on one rock and 2 on another, I've put both rocks in a seperate tank, no plans to nuke the rocks as yet. They are no larger than a penny in diameter, including the tentacles. Do peppermint shrimp really eat these guys? I read they are iffy, and I would imagine these anemonies scoot into a tiny hole far out of reach of the shrimp? I would go nuts if the aiptasia hide from the shrimp and the shrimp end up eating zoas or something. Has anyone had any experience with berghias? ------------- http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1157896 - Difficult and special care reef inhabitants |
Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: February 15 2006 at 9:08am
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Pepermint shrimp will eat them,but not always, especially if there is a lot of other, tastier food going into the tank. PS are the first thing to try. Berghia are hard to find and die after eating all the Aiptasia, because they will eat nothing else. PS are good for long term control. Since you can remove the rock, the best thing to do is Kalk paste them. A couple of applications takes care of them, but still, babies can erupt anywhere. Another reason why PS are the organism of choice. ------------- Reefkeeping Tips, & quick, easy setup tricks: www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244 Pay it forward - become a paid WMAS member
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Posted By: Jake Pehrson
Date Posted: February 15 2006 at 10:32am
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I agree with Mark. This is an Aiptasia. The peppermint almost always will take care of them, as long as you don't have a complete over population. If you see a couple more pop up then I would get a peppermint before they start to take over. Most times they will stay in check and are not a problem, but if they get out of control it is an uphill battle to get rid of them. ------------- Jake Pehrson Murray http://coralplanet.com" rel="nofollow - coralplanet.com http://utahbeeranch.com" rel="nofollow - :) |
Posted By: sshm
Date Posted: February 15 2006 at 2:37pm
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Thanks Jake.
On another note, has anyone tried placing a mad crazy aggresive coral, like maybe a hammer/frogspawn or something even more hyper, next to aiptasia colonies? Will they sting them to death, and will the aiptasia tissue regenerate after the beating? ------------- http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1157896 - Difficult and special care reef inhabitants |
Posted By: Adam Haycock
Date Posted: February 15 2006 at 2:46pm
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Sorry??? Mark what are you talking about?? Aiptasia anemones are extremely hardy, beautiful and spread very quickly. It has everything I look for in an aquarium specimen. Spot feeding really helps on getting them to grow. ------------- 
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Mark Peterson wrote:
Posted By: Tammy3770
Date Posted: February 15 2006 at 3:22pm
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you can put some GSP by them and the gsp will take them over, but then you will have a GSP problem |
Posted By: Jake Pehrson
Date Posted: February 15 2006 at 5:10pm
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Yes, This is somewhat effective. Usually only the most aggressive corals will do well in this "battle". Elegance and galaxia are good choices. A hammer or frogspawn will probably work well also. GSP will most likely get stung by the Aiptasia and decide not to grow in that direction. ------------- Jake Pehrson Murray http://coralplanet.com" rel="nofollow - coralplanet.com http://utahbeeranch.com" rel="nofollow - :) |
Posted By: sshm
Date Posted: February 16 2006 at 1:41am
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Ok, I invested in a couple of PS. the rocks are isolated in a seperate tank for
now and I put the shrimp in with it. I read somewhere that PS will attack and try to eat yellow polyps since they look like anemones. Has anyone had their PS attacking and eating/harming other corals? ------------- http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1157896 - Difficult and special care reef inhabitants |
Posted By: Angel
Date Posted: February 16 2006 at 7:10am
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Do PS eat bubble tip anemonies? ------------- Connie Tooele |
Posted By: Mike Savage
Date Posted: February 16 2006 at 8:33am
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I've had no problems with my peppermint shrimp at all. I put them in for the same reason as you and they are not shy, eat well, and are fun to watch. They will even eat out of our hand and clean our fingers. I like them much better than my fire shrimp. Angel, they only go for "small" aiptaisa from what I've heard. I have had no problems with mine at all but I have no anemones. ------------- |
Posted By: jpiotrowski
Date Posted: February 16 2006 at 9:52am
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Just my 2cents. I had an aiptasia problem, not an infestation but enough to where they were growing among the coral. I invested in a ps and was dismayed that after a month the aiptasia hadn't disappeared. Weeks (or months) later I noticed that the aiptasia that I was trying to kill (one of two among the coral) was gone! In fact 75-80% of the aiptasia in the tank was gone. Later, the only aiptasia in the tank was that which was in my sump! My hypothesis is that the ps found something much tastier than the aiptasia for the first couple of months then ran out or decided that the aiptasia was good after all! I never did see him eating or attacking one but mine was shy and would only come out at night. I'm getting a ps tomorrow in fact, to help cut down/eliminate the aiptasia in my frag tanks. John |
Posted By: Jake Pehrson
Date Posted: February 16 2006 at 11:01am
This is fairly common. That is why it is best to catch Aiptasia before the begin to take over the tank. When they get to plague proportions then sometimes only an army of peppermints can remedy the situation. ------------- Jake Pehrson Murray http://coralplanet.com" rel="nofollow - coralplanet.com http://utahbeeranch.com" rel="nofollow - :) |
Posted By: Adam Blundell
Date Posted: February 16 2006 at 11:24am
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In fact they probably are little anemones. And yes peppermint shrimp love to eat them. It is common to have ps eat all your aptasia then wipe out all your yellow polyps. Adam ------------- Come to a meeting, they�re fun! |
Posted By: Jake Pehrson
Date Posted: February 16 2006 at 12:09pm
I agree with Adam. They are little anemones (just look at them). I have never had problems with Peppermints aggressively attacking yellow polyps (like they do Aiptasia), but I do think peppermints constantly pick at things in our aquariums that we like (usually not killing them). ------------- Jake Pehrson Murray http://coralplanet.com" rel="nofollow - coralplanet.com http://utahbeeranch.com" rel="nofollow - :) |
Posted By: sshm
Date Posted: February 16 2006 at 6:51pm
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(at the risk of turning this into a PS discussion topic) So what do I feed
these little fellas in the long run? One of them has already molted, I can see both of them looking long and hard through the live rock, these guys are a keeper for sure. Do you feed them regular pellets or some special shrimp/crab pellet? ------------- http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1157896 - Difficult and special care reef inhabitants |
Posted By: Mike Savage
Date Posted: February 16 2006 at 8:41pm
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Mine eat whatever I feed the fish and anything else they can scrounge up. When I feed my fish all my shrimp come out to eat too. ------------- |
Posted By: Jake Pehrson
Date Posted: February 16 2006 at 9:32pm
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Like Mike said. They eat anything. You really don't have to worry about feeding them, the will eat whatever is leftover from feeding your fish and corals. ------------- Jake Pehrson Murray http://coralplanet.com" rel="nofollow - coralplanet.com http://utahbeeranch.com" rel="nofollow - :) |