carpet of anemones

Hi all, new member here and a slight emergency has brought me. I took over a small 20 gal salt tank several months ago. It has 4 or 5 various damsels, a firefish, a crab and some snails. There is one piece of live rock that has been in the tank since starting it over a year ago. The only thing I have added is some boiled out & cleaned limestone and some plastic caves/plants. everythings been healthy and nice.

I'm new to salt tanks, so I'm taking it slow. My only mistake has been a large white anemone I purchased, I'm not sure what happened but after several weeks it died.

However recently after a 20% water change i noticed what look to be very tiny anemones. a few at first, now its a carpet of them. I've scoured the site and read about aiptasia, but other members report 100's of them in very large tanks. I have thousands of them in a very small tank. a couple on the glass but mostly on the sand/gravel and decorations - not only the live rock.

I'd take a picture but they're tiny. they are all white and look like what are called 'feather dusters' in the pet store. Is this aiptasia?

thanks so much for any info! whatever it is, i'd like to get it taken care of while they're still tiny and my fish are all healthy.

 

Welcome to 3reef,

They are most likely aiptasia or majano, both pest anemones that reproduce quickly in the home aquarium and may sting and kill corals.

Live Rock Hitch Hikers

The above is a great link for identification of the usual hitch-hikers. Look under the anemone section.

My recommendation, is that if the infestation is that bad you will have to treat aggressively.

If you need some assistance in how to go about that, just let us know.

 

They could be feather dusters too.

 

Thanks for the link, I didn't see anything that looked exactly like what I've got, but could I chalk that up to them still being so small? Even the aiptasia have some color, but what I've got are all white (so far)

By aggressive, do you mean taking out rock, scrubbing, water change? Or do you mean chemicals?

When I got this tank, I disliked it because it's a 20 gal high. I have a 20 gal long I'd prefer so if i'm going to be doing major water changes, etc do you think it'd be ok to do a changeover?

thanks again!

 

If so, I could start up my own feather duster business. Hey, do you need any? LOL, it's just strange they appeared so fast after such a long time. Nothing I've added came from salt water. I assume they could have been in the salt that I mixed when i did the water change?

thanks!

 

+1

Here's another good ID site

 

If not feather dusters or pest anemones, take a look a hydroids. All can be found on the ID link.

Anemones will completely withdrawal into the LR, feather dusters usually have a tube to which they withdrawal into. Try blowing some water in their direction or move the rock slightly, you should be able to see them retract.

Considering the number of current tank inhabitants, you might be feeding the un-identified hitch-hikers, causing their number to increase dramatically.

 

thanks guys, as i look at these I'm more convinced its some kind of duster or hydroid. I'll do some more investigating.

thanks very much! I'll post more on this later.