Unidentified coral!?

[dingusplease]

Hi all,

I just got a new zoa colony, and I just noticed a small bit of aiptasia or something. Can someone please help me identify it? It doesn't have a stalk, so it might not be aiptasia... I don't know. Thanks for any help!

 

[dingusplease]

Sorry, I forgot to mention that the unidentified 'coral' is translucent, white-ish, spiky, and very sparse on the back of the coral frag rock.

 

[54seaweed]

looks like sponge

 

[paul87]

looks like sponge

+1 Sponge

 

[dingusplease]

Thanks guys - I guess it must be a sponge then. I've never seen one before, and it already looks like it's growing. Are they at all dangerous to anything else?

 

[mr_X]

I'm thinking some sort of pest anemone. Maybe aptasia, maybe majano. It's bleached right now, but under your lighting it should color up to whatever color it is.

 

[dingusplease]

I started thinking the same of thing after looking at it again -- the shape of the "arms" resembles most cases of aiptasia I've seen, and the number of arms is drastically increasing every day (seems to be growing quick!)

 

[dingusplease]

Ok, please confirm if this is aiptasia:

Also, what so you guys think I should do? It is pretty small, but growing fast. Please tell me of there is anymore info I can provide to help ID this thing. Thanks!

 

[Zactheninja]

I think it's definitely aptasia.

 

[mr_X]

Yep. I agree.

 

[dingusplease]

What would be best to do at this point? I've heard of lots of methods,
.. Not sure what would be best for such a small one

 

[mr_X]

I use Kalkwasser. You can get a small tub of it at the LFS pretty cheap. I mix it up into a thick paste, shut all the flow off in the tank, then use a syringe less the steel tip and squirt some right in the center of it. When it closes up I cover the rest of it with more paste.
Being so close to the zoas you'll probably kill a few of them as well, but they will grow back in time.

 

[dingusplease]

Sounds like a plan! Thanks for the advice. I'm sure the Zoas will grow back pretty quickly, they've already started spreading to the LR (I'm spot feeding them)