ID Please - Aptasia or Feather Dusters

[Doostur]

Need a little help IDing.

Looks like these may be feather dusters? I can't tell if it's causing my Zoas to not open. Whatever it is. If they are feather dusters, are they harmful? Get rid of them? If so how?

Or Aptasia?

 

[Leslie Tabor]

The first picture definitely has several aptasia circled. I feel the second photo is little filter feeders of some type.

 

[Doostur]

Hrmmm. Here is closer look of second picture. Will scrubbing them with tooth brush work?

 

[Maritimer]

Second and third photos are feather dusters, and shouldn't be harmful.

Three circles on the left in the first photo are also feather dusters, but the ones on the right are Aiptasia.

~Bruce

 

[Leslie Tabor]

The feather dusters are fine. If you go after aptasia with a tooth brush you will just end up with more aptasia. Since you just have a few, covering them with glue/epoxy/scape putty etc may work for you. Berghia are great if you have more aptasia, but they are expensive. Search aptasia on the forum, there are many thoughts on getting rid of them.

 

[Sfplaya1]

Throw a copperband butterfly.

 

[IonicBond]

The only items of concern are the furthest right 4 circles in the first picture, those are definitely aiptasia, the rest are helpful polychaetes.

You can try putting epoxy on them as another stated. It looks like they have spread you might look into getting a peppermint shrimp (cheaper and more responsible than a butterfly depending on your tank size). If I just have one or two isolated aiptasia I take a syringe with a needle, microwave a little cup of Kalkwasser and shoot it right in the mouth, it will disintegrate- making sure you don't shoot a bunch of Kalk in your tank, a tiny amount is all that's necessary if you hit it right on the button.

 

[Doostur]

Our tank isn't big enough for a copperband butterfly. We picked up a peppermint shrimp. We only have a few. If shrimpie doesn't do it's job, I'll manually remove.

 

[Swoody]

If you can pull the rock out, burning them off is a sure fire method. The filter feeders I’d be happy to keep in my tank so hopefully you’ll let them guys go... Thankfully the only aiptasia I’ve had was in my sump, so it was easy to pull the rock out and literally FIRE !!