Anybody ID this? Found on a piece of LR used to cycle tank.

I am asking about the thing located near the top of the image (looks like a little torch coral) It came on a rock along with a lot of polyps and I have no idea what it is.

 

Aiptasia or Majano- pest anemone either way. It appears you have another smaller one in the crevice just beneath the one on top.

 

Yup and another one about 1.5" (in the picture) down and to left of the small one in the crevice.

 

holy crap dude, well spotted.

there are different brands that you can inject directly in it to kill it. i personally have had success on small specimens (the size in your picture) with concentrated lemon juice. others suggest boiling hot water, always by means of injection.

otherwise natural predators are peppermint shrimps, a species of nubibrache and copper band butterfly fish. if you decide to get an animal to control them i would strongly recommend the shrimps as they are "easy" to care for and thorough in their job.

nubis will starve once the apitasias are gone and CBBs are very delicate.

 

Thanks for the info guys, are peppermint shrimp reef safe? I would prefer not to lose my zoas.

 

they can pester and munch lps tissue. not sure about zoas, good point I forgot to mention that.

 

I still feel people are often buying camel shrimp instead of peppermint shrimp (they look rather similar, especially when you don't pay too much attention to them). Camel shrimp also eat aiptasia, but are not reef safe.

Every peppermint shrimp I've owned never went near any types of corals. Could just be me.

Just a theory.

As Swiss mentioned, all those methods work for some people, not for others, just find which is most successful for you.

My favorite however is taking a piece of LR (live rock) rubble and putting it directly on the anemone, blocking it from getting any light. The anemone, seeking light, will "walk" and often right onto the rubble, which you can just throw away.

 

I think I will try the peppermint shrimp method as I like natural cures and have found about 10 aiptasia on my rock. How many should I get for my 29 gallon setup?

 

start with 3 or 4 imo

 

Personally I would go with the peppermint shrimp for now. You do not have any expensive LPS yet or anemones?

For that size of tank I would go for at least three. You're bound to have a ton of smaller aiptasia popping up in the near future by the look of that rock.

Just be prepared to remove the Peppermint shrimp if they go after corals in the future. They're not as easy to catch as one might think, stunning with FW might help.

Might want to stay away from who or where ever you bought that rock from in the future.