Upside down jellyfish

Just want to share some more of my upside down jellyfish pictures. One of them is getting quite big and is about 9 months old.

 

cool.. looks like you got a bunch of them.

 

They keep appearing in my tank, I have stopped saving them fom the current now because I don't have enough room for them all. I've got just over 60 in floating plastic boxes in my second tank.

 

what do you feed them Phil ?
did you buy some and they have just reproduced?
do they represent a threat to anything else in the tank?
will a LFS take them in return for store credit?

basically - pictures like that require a story to go with them
please tell us more about them

Steve

 

I am very interested. Waiting to hear more.

 

4 years ago I set up my first marine tank with live rock, snails, a sea urchin and a false gramma. After a month I saw sponges and hydroids appear and then about 6 months later I saw the a couple of baby jellyfish. It was a simple set up; a 3 foot tank with overflow and a sump in the cabinet, with a 2000lph return pump.

Baby jellyfish from ca.4 years ago:




One which survived and grew in my original tank (ca.4 years ago)



The hydroids are the polyp stage of the upside down jellyfishes lifecycle. Almost anything can cause jellyfish production, the polyps produce a jellyfish if they get stressed or when conditions are good.

Hydroids in my seaweed tank on my magnetic algal scraper:





I do not target feed them, they have symbiotic algae which keeps them fed and gives them their colour. They just pulsate under my fluorescent tubes. There is a lot of pods in my tank which I'm sure they also feed on.

They require slow flow and high lighting, and any pumps or overflows need mesh over them to stop them getting sucked up.

They can sting fish and it's best not to keep them with small/slow moving fish due to their opportunistic nature.

I have sold 2 to someone local so far. All the lfs I have spoken to have said that they aren't sure how to look after them and are reluctant to trade any.

 

excellent account Invert Phil and very interesting reading
beautiful creatures for certain

Steve

 

Good to know they can survive. I think one of the keys is your mesh around the powerhead. Seems like most peoples end up getting sucked up and die there.

 

Shot this video of the hydroids just before they released their jellyfish about 3 weeks ago in my seaweed tank.

 

that is too cool! they are huge! i remember seeing washed up jelly fish at the beach once, and at seaworld when i was young. Very cool!