Various Hitchikers on Living Rock

I have had all sorts of things appearing on my living rock over the last few weeks, from strange green algae that is hard and brittle, to tiny polyps. Not to sure what the hard green stuff is, or the polyps so any help would be appreciated.

 

Those polyps on pic 2 are aiptasia, and should be dealt with soon. I had about 100 of them at one time until I added two big peppermint shrimp to my tank, now I can't find a single one..

 

pics 2 and 3 look like aiptasia
not sure of the algae in 1, and it's hard to make out what is in #4. It may be another type of nuisance anemone.

 

Agreed, you have a bad aptaisia problem.

 

Pretty sure pic 3 are worms, see the little tubes?? Or hydroids..

 

I do have some aptasia in the tank, but these polyps look different, they have a green tinge to them, and they are not the same shape as the aptasia, and they are in a small colony.

 

2 is aiptasia. 3 and 4 are colonial hydroids. 1 is some sort of macro algae.

 

Pretty sure pic 2 aint apitasia, when under a blue led or actinic light the polyps glow yellow, none of the other apitasia in the tank glows.

 

I would almost definitely say pic #2 is aiptasia also

 

People call out aiptasia for anything they can't identify. It's so annoying. But aiptasia is a genus not a speecies so they all look different, adding to the confusion. There's some aiptasia who have the circular base like picture two. If you ask me it looks too much like Aiptasia pulchella and you don't want them in your aquarium anyway. They are ugly looking anemones if you ask me.