Anemone ? or corallimorph

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1776Ken

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Apr 11, 2006
Messages
6
Location
Mineral VA
I'm a new reefer. Started in March 06.
I bought these ??? cheap at the not LPS. See photos. I was told they were mushrooms. Upon further investigation and inspection I'm not sure what they are. They are about 1 inch tall and the disc is about the same. The "tentacles" or bumps around the circumference are less than 1/16 of an inch high. Fewer bumps are seen as you get closer to the center where a peak occurs and the mouth is located. Note that there does not seem to be any skeleton and only about half the base is attached to the rock. Day or night there is no great change in shape (swelling or shrinking or longer tentacles) but upon occasion it will loosely close like an anemone or button polyp.
 

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They look like atlantic carpet anemones and they look stressed at that.. not normal for their mouth to be distended like that unless they are in the middle of eating something. Be sure to put good cover over your powerhead intakes.. these guys (if they are what I think they are) will move around until they find a spot they like - I lost one to a powerhead through the stock screen on a maxijet.
 
They look like mushrooms (corallimorphs) to me. They appear to be very bleached out though. This could be from stress or being kept in low light conditions. Give them some time, good water conditions and decent lighting and they should regain thier zooxanthellae and show thier true colors.
 
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