Aiptasia, majano, or other?

[wtdenk]

Very small on the bottom side of a piece of gulf rock.

 

[Sharkbait19]

Almost looks like a baby bta. Majano also can have bubbly tips like that though.

 

[wtdenk]

Tried to get a more straight on pic. In the center there are shades of blue, white, and grey.

 

[Bucs20fan]

I agree with majano, looks like it to me, is that a eunice worm sticking its head out above the nem?

 

[wtdenk]

I agree with majano, looks like it to me, is that a eunice worm sticking its head out above the nem?

Hope not. There are quite a few tiny tentacles sticking out from the rock, they all are clearish white with little brown rings around them. The one in the picture seems to be on the head of an old barnacle. I certainly could be wrong.

 

[Bucs20fan]

Hope not. There are quite a few tiny tentacles sticking out from the rock, they all are clearish white with little brown rings around them. The one in the picture seems to be on the head of an old barnacle. I certainly could be wrong.

Something is definitely living in that dead barnacle for sure. To my best guess those look like Eunice antenna. Not saying its a bobbit, but looks like a worm antenna for sure.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

With it hiding from the light like that, the bulbous tips and the patterning on the oral disk, it looks like a Aiptasia mutabilis aka light bulb anemone.

Is the rock Gulf of Mexico sources rock?

Edit: The light bulb nem is not actually classified, since not much work being done on these species, but FWC lumps them under Aiptasia mutabilis for ease of reference.

 

[wtdenk]

Something is definitely living in that dead barnacle for sure. To my best guess those look like Eunice antenna. Not saying its a bobbit, but looks like a worm antenna for sure.

Here is a pic of a different rock with more of those same tentacles. They are on every rock I recieved from the gulf.

 

[wtdenk]

With it hiding from the light like that, the bulbous tips and the patterning on the oral disk, it looks like a Aiptasia mutabilis aka light bulb anemone.

Is the rock Gulf of Mexico sources rock?

Edit: The light bulb nem is not actually classified, since not much work being done on these species, but FWC lumps them under Aiptasia mutabilis for ease of reference.

Yes it is. Off coast of Florida. So safe to say I should remove it?

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Here is a pic of a different rock with more of those same tentacles. They are on every rock I recieved from the gulf.

If you can get a pic of all of them using a flashlight for the light when taking the pic, I should be able to ID all and anything else that you have questions about on the rock.

 

[Bucs20fan]

picture is rather fuzzy, the flashlight pic would help for sure. If you have them all over then that is obviously no bueno, but feel free to try and get some better pics with white lighting and we can ID em for ya. With it being gulf rock theres no telling what it could be. I will tell you a great method for getting them out, mix up some hypo salinity salt water, like 1.010 and dip that rock in it. All the creepy crawlies will come out after a few minutes and it wont kill any of your bacteria you want.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Yes it is. Off coast of Florida. So safe to say I should remove it?

They are aips, but do not spread near as quickly as what is normally seen in the hobby. They will sting corals, but do not do much damage to fish if they run across them.

With the above said, removing them is up to you.

They are easy to remove, especially if you can take the rocks out of the tank. Just follow the directions below and it will nuke them and the sperm/gametes inside of the nems. (these nems have been shown to reproduce via spawning and splitting, they cannot self fertilize like some species.)

Take a syringe and some almost boiling straight vinegar (if you have kalkwassser, you can make a mix of it and water as well, but it does not need to be heated). It does not need to be boiling. Just very hot.

Inject the nem directly dead center or close to it. Biggest thing is making sure it goes into the oral disk of the nem,

Let it sit for a minute and then you can scrape the nem off the rock.

In the area where the nem was, take a small makeup brush and apply a little bit of hydrgen peroxide to that area.

Let that sit for 2-3 minutes (this causes the gametes and sperm that the vinegar may not have gotten to not be viable).

Then rinse in some old tank water and place rock back in the tank.

This has worked for me 100% of the time.

It can also be done in the tank, but not recommended for in tank if you have a ton of them.


Edit: If you have a local reefer like me who likes these guys, there is another way to remove without killing them. Let me know if you want that option.

 

[Tamberav]

why do people call everything an aiptasia? not every small brown nem is aip. The ocean is really large guys... there is more than 1 type of small nem.

Where is the rock from? the gulf? the really fast spreading annoying aiptasia are not from that area.

The first pic is a lightbulb anemone. I have one and so far it has remained one.

Gulf Live Rock.com

gulfliverock.com

 

[wtdenk]

Thank you for the help. I'll just remove the rock for now. Flashlight pics were still bad. Turned off the blues and up the whites and took a few more pics of the tentacles of the worms. Not sure if it'll help

 

[Bucs20fan]

Thank you for the help. I'll just remove the rock for now. Flashlight pics were still bad. Turned off the blues and up the whites and took a few more pics of the tentacles of the worms. Not sure if it'll help

Looks like either that or micro brittle stars, but stars usually stick to the rocks not point straight out.

 

[Bucs20fan]

I would keep the nem though, its actually a pretty hitch hiker, not the standard aip for sure.

 

[Tamberav]

+1, Keep the nem and those are probably micro brittle stars which are also good.

You paid good money for live rock, best to keep the good guys. The point is diversity

 

[Tired]

Those are micro brittles, by the segmenting. You want those.

(They wouldn't be bobbits anyway, rock isn't collected from bobbit habitat any more.)

 

[Eagle_Steve]

why do people call everything an aiptasia? not every small brown nem is aip. The ocean is really large guys... there is more than 1 type of small nem.

Where is the rock from? the gulf? the really fast spreading annoying aiptasia are not from that area.

The first pic is a lightbulb anemone. I have one and so far it has remained one.

Gulf Live Rock.com

gulfliverock.com

I respectfully disagree, due to work I am doing with the FWC and a few colleges in regards to anemone reproduction.

While not the typical aiptasia we see, they are currently listed under the genus as an aiptasia sp. and very closely resemble Aiptasia mutabilis when you look at all of the features of that specific anemone.

As with all things, it could be reclassified at a later date, but for now, that is what it falls under.

 

[Tamberav]

There isn't much THAT scary bad on gulf live rock. The most common might be some bad crabs (but many might be emeralds or ruby emeralds) like gorilla crabs, welks, and invasive algaes.

There can be some more uncommon bad guys but not typically nems or worms (except large flat worms).