Can anyone I.D. this anemone?

[snapcrackler]

Bought a batch of plants today for my SW along with some other stuff. I Placed plants in tank and, lo and behold, a pea-sized jellyfish looking guy floated past, I touched it with my finger and he stuck right on my hand. It looked like an anemone upon closer examination so I gently placed the stump-end into a crevice in one of my live rocks. He crept right into the crack with his little stump, and then opened up.

Here is a pic, his tentacles or tubes appear to be banded with a darker brown.

Anyone know what he is?


Thank you,

 

[ReefLady]

IMO, that looks more like an anemone than a jelly. It looks like a pest anemone, possibly of the Aiptasia species, or something similar.

 

[e-cat]

could it be a bubble tip?

 

[snapcrackler]

Hmm.. I looked at pics of a couple bubble tips and maybe that could be it too.. I hope it's not an aiptasia.. here are all of the charateristics that I can think of...

Twitches around a lot and moves a lot.
darker bands of brown on all tentacles.
tiny spherical tips on the end of all tentacles (I think) .
Crawled right in and made home quickly.

Is now putting out more smaller tentacles as we speak..... looks a lot fuller now than in the picture.

Total size only 1/2 stretched out.

 

[e-cat]

well what ever it is lets hope its not going too be a pain for you.

 

[snapcrackler]

Uh oh...... :|

So how do I know, later, when he grows to behemoth proportions and tears all of the powerheads off of the glass and eats the suction cups, and stings me to death when I attempt to remove it, leaving me twitching in a pool of saltwater, exactly what kind of anemone he might be?

I mean theoretically.

8O

Just a little saltwater humor there for you.

 

[reefrunner69]

If you ask me, it looks like an aiptasia

 

[snapcrackler]

It rode along with the caulerpa I got... should I evict it or wait...?

 

[MT79]

Looks to me like a curlyque, which should'nt be a problem. They fair quite well in aquariums, maybe to well...they grow fast. Though, it could be an aiptasia, the pictures hard to tell. Curlyques have brown bands on clear tubes. I find my curlyque very interesting, easily accepts food by hand.

 

[MT79]

P.S. ( if it is a curlycue) mines about 6 inches in height now, with it's stalk and tentacles extended and I have no problems w/ my 1" damsels, or scarlet shrimp. Only problem I see w/ curlycues is how well they fair, in effect growing rapidly. Until mine gets to big I'll keep him! If it is a curlycue, they will "root" in a DSB near a rock stretching their base into the sand and under the rock, not into the rock.

 

[snapcrackler]

Wowie! I hope that is it..

I will feed it some zooplank tonight or something and see if it gobbles it up... My new tube anemone chowed on zooplankton tonight..

I will keep close eye and post new pics if it gets more aiptasialike

I HOPE it is a happy anemone instead.

what a weird hobby this is

The more I know, the less I understand, says it all.

Thank you MT79 and ReefRunner for your replies

 

[steve-s]

Sorry to say I agree with Reeflady and reefrunner, that is IME aiptasia not a curlycue. If it where me, I would take steps to be rid of it. They spread very quickly and can reach plague proportions in a very short span.

Cheers
Steve

 

[snapcrackler]

I see... Interesting...

I must add right now that this guy's tentacles have swollen up at the tips quite a bit!! The tips are very large and pear shaped and the rest of the thing is normal.

I have attached a pic, please look to the center of the pic and below the crab for this pumped up anemone. Do aiptasia do that (I hope not)

 

[MT79]

every aiptasia photo I've seen shows no bands period. I think it's a curlycue. IMHO give it a chance!

 

[cj10488]

I would have to Agree with Reefrunner, Reeflady and Steve-s That to me definetly looks like every aiptasia I have seen... I personally would nuke it as well as some of the others would probably agree... JMHO

HTH,
James

BTW I have nuked about 15 or so that have looked identical to that and will continue to nuke everyone that looks like that..

 

[snapcrackler]

Now i'm really confused, guys, hehe!!!

One last thing I gotta ask....... do aiptasis swell up at the ends like this one is doing? It looks like it has bulbs on the end.

 

[reefrunner69]

Here are a couple of different pics I found of aiptasia on the net, all look similar but have some variances in shape and color.

For more pics to compare, Google images search for aiptasia.

 

[snapcrackler]

Ohhhhh......

I see what you mean now

MT I gotta say it looks a lot like this tentaclewise....

Since it took hold of the LR just yesterday should I pluck it off without worry of it reproducing all over the place?

 

[Bang Guy]

every aiptasia photo I've seen shows no bands period. I think it's a curlycue. IMHO give it a chance!

This Aiptasia I have in my tank iseems very similar and I've seen it pump up like that. I believe the Anemone in question to be Aiptasia sp.

This type does not seem to spread a quickly as others but it also has a really nasty sting and gets quite large... quite large.

Guy

 

[reefrunner69]

You should not try to manually remove a live aiptasia, any piece or pieces that get left on the rock will grow into a new anemone. You may end up with three or four, rather than one.

There are several mthods for killing the, you can inject them with kalkwasser, inject them with lemon juice or vinegar, or rely on biological means (peppermint shrimp, copperband butterfly, etc...).