I got the light working in my tank and when I turned it on I was surprised to see a whitish, almost transparent thing coming out of a hole in my LR. I'll try to get a picture of it but because it's so clear I wasn't able to get one. it is on a stalk looking thing with a kind of hairy/feathery looking 'head' (moves around nicely in the water). The head is maybe a quarter big? The stalk kind of curves out of the hole and it's all one color. I just put the LR in recently so I didn't notice it until today. Does this sound like some sort of algae or maybe some kind of left over coral from somewhere? TIA!
april could be a zoanthid that was on the rock when in my tank but scence it was in a tub with no light it turned white try and get a picture that will help
awww well darn. It looks pretty =( lol Since it's on a small rock, would taking that rock out and treating the rock alone fix it?
After reading a little bit about them and seeing some pictures... I have to know... can I keep it? lol It's the only one that I see after a complete as possible inspection and since it's the only thing aside from rock, fish and crabs in my tank, I kind of like the idea of having something... lol I understand that they can get way out of control. Would it be reasonable to assume that once it starts to get too big for my liking or I decide to do some corals that I can get some peppermint shrimp or something and rid or them then?
In my opinion, keeping it for any 'lengthy' period of time would be a gamble...a small one today could be several small ones in no time. I had one attached to a hermit's shell last week.... thought that was weird.
I hate to see it go but I guess the safest and quickest thing to do would be to remove the rock that it's on, although it's very small it's my favorite rock in the whole tank.
Went back to look at the tank (again!) and the thing is on the move. Also noticed that there is another one similar in shape but darker in color in the rock as well. (if you look carefully in the picture you can see it in the hole that is to the bottom left). I'll pull the rock tonight.
some pics to compare it too http://www.google.com/images?rlz=1T...sia&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi
You really need to kill them all as soon as you can. They will reproduce very fast if you just let them live. Then you will fight them for a very long time and if there is alot of them you will lose the battle I had to get a kliens butterfly to eat them.
This stuff is so easy to use & works great - I used it once on a frag I got mounted to a rock that had two of them, killed them in seconds, to never return. Marine Depot has it for $9 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo3DZYdAD2Y
Aww, how we all love to see any signs of growth in our new tanks...I was the same way Yes these little guys can become a problem. Best bet is to get rid of it asap. If you would like to do it in a more natural way think about adding a peppermint shrimp to your tank.
+1 on the peppermint shrimp I added one and within a couple weeks all Aiptasia were gone. I even had one large one he ate it as well.
trouble with peppermint shrimp is that its hit or miss as to if they well eat the aptasia, use the aptasia X, just make sure you turn the flow off like the directions say for 30 mins.
Thank you for your responses, everyone. I bought a peppermint shrimp yesterday but so far he's a lazy shrimp and just hides out in the holes under the rocks. I'm planning on giving him a few days. I'll buy the Aiptasia X stuff next week.
ha ha I have a couple hundred you can have from my tank! My wife too thought thy were interesting and now I have a infestation. I have it down to about a 100 now and it is getting better, thinking of getting peppermint shrimp like someone said. you have pretty rock though. you may have some creepers that are living in the rock. I got some really good rock from cindy18 have bunch of copeopods 2 starfish about the size of a dime and 6-7 small snails. I like looking for the starfish every day they are hard to spot. Glen
My peppermint shrimp ate aptasia at first... but they got hooked on my regular feedings and haven't touched aptasia since.
