I think I have found Aiptasia

[alarmguy66]

My wife brought me home some caulerpa, and I threw it in my qt tank (well, its gonna be a qt tank) and started checking it out. I was looking for pods or hitchhikers and I saw 5 of these small brown anenome looking things. They are definitly alive as there is no water movement in the tank and the limbs move. They are attatched to the grass, have 5-10 mm tube bodies and multiple arms. My wife said throw them in the tank, and I almost did, but figured Id rather know what they are first.

I still want to use the plant to feed my tang, can I just be REALLY carefull not to get any of these brown things in my main tank, or should I throw it all away? Is it aiptasia or something else? Sorry, they are too small to get a good pic of.

 

[steve-s]

Could easily be aiptasia and if so, it's the last thing you want in your display tank. If they are still attached to the caulerpa, they should be easy enough to remove by tossing the piece of caulerpa. Be mindful not to damage the aips in any way. They reproduce primarily through tissue seperation so any damage to them results in many more...

Caulerpa's are also not very good foods for herbavor fish. I would instead suggest getting non-caulerpa species of macro algae like chaetomorpha or gracilaria. They are more nutritious than caulerpa and less dangerous to the tank as a whole.

Cheers
Steve

 

[alarmguy66]

Thanks steve, I ended up removing the stalks they were attatched to last night, ended up being 8 of them. Im pretty glad I didnt just dump it into my main tank. I alternate between Caulerpa, spinach and store bought freeze dried macros. Nothing available around here other than those. I also only keep enough in the tank for a day or 2 at a time.