What Might this Be?

[Curtis1551]

I am starting my first FOWLR tank. I found a interesting thing on my first piece of LR. Does anyone know what it might be and how to care for it? I am cycling my tank at this time, will the unbalanced water kill it?

[skippy2]

To me it looks like an aptasia. You don't want it in your tank. Get rid of it now before it multiplies.

[casingbill]

joes juice to kill it

[NickBee]

I had one as a hitchhiker on one of my base rocks when I 1st set up my tank about 3 months ago:

http://www.nickbee.com/images/fish6.jpg

After posting on here and getting advised I took the rock out, grabbed a chisel and hammer, and chipped away the part of the rock he was attached to. Since then I have not seen any others pop up (knock on wood)...

[Curtis1551]

Wow! What will this thing do to my tank? Also, can it retract its tenticals or did it die last night? It took lots of damage during the trip from LFS and my tank is cycling.

[ionredline0260]

they can retract, I just got a huge one on a pice of LR rubble and when I got close to the rock it slowly went back into it's hole.

[gkelly]

Are you sure that's aiptasia? Most of the photos I see are darker and the anem is thinner and taller...

Not much experience here, so I don't know, but I've got one of them in my tank and had figured it wasn't aiptasia.

I've been feeding it...

[hawaiian_boi]

some aptasia are clear and in those pics those are aptasia...

[Curtis1551]

I have researched aiptasia and most things say they are clear to brown in color. Mine looks clear blue with no brown. Either way I will add a predator like a peppermint shrimp ASAP. I don't what aiptasia if this is one or not. Any additional help with ID or killing technique will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[rcmike]

It looks like a coral that is common on caribbean live rock to me. Does it have a stony base? Look at www.gulf-view.com and they have a picture of what I am talking about. They call it a cup coral.

[loves saltwater]

It does not look like aiptasia to me. Way too white in color and too many tentacles.

[bertoni]

It looks more like a cup coral (Corynactis) than anything else. I'd leave it alone, personally, or try feeding it some small bits of fish food.

[gkelly]

Either way - I'd get a positive ID before I killed anything...

[techreef]

i have LR from TampaBay Saltwater, and have 5-6 cup corals on my rocks. Originally I thought that they might be aiptasia, but they aren't. Your pic is too blurry for me to tell definitively, but take better pics if you can't decide for yourself and post them here. One thing to look for is at the base of the tentacles. Cup corals have a circular rock-like base, with ridges around the circumference of the base. These ridges look like white radiator fins stuck into the base. When you poke cup coral tentacles, the whole thing can retract into the base, so don't think that it's aiptasia because of that.

[MrPike]

Your keeping a FOWLR, I wouldnt kill it even if it was an aptasia. Chances are whatever kind of unsafe reeffish you get will destroy it. And if they really get out of hand, which I doubt they will, you can buy multiple different kinds of butterfly fish to work them over.

[rustybucket145]

Yeah, I def don't think that is aptasia. You might want to look up rock anemone, rock coral, cup coral or curlyque anemone. All these are good to have so be sure to get a proper id before you squirt it with some juice.

[Curtis1551]

Ok so it seems I cna't be sure what it is. If I get a Peppermint Shrimp will it eat the bad and leave the good coral or will it just eat all of them?

[bertoni]

It's unlikely to eat coral, but if it does, soft corals can disappear rapidly, in my experience. I don't know about stony corals.

[techreef]

I have two peppermint and two skunk shrimp in my 90G tank. They don't touch the cup corals.

[Curtis1551]

Ok, I think this will be my last question on this one. Can I put Peppermint Shrimp into the tank while it is cycling or do I have to wait and will this slow the cycling process? Well I guess that two questions. Thanks to the 180 people that downloaded my picture and gave me the helpful feed back.

[bertoni]

I'd wait for three weeks of zero ammonia before adding any animals. There's no rush.

[techreef]

Right on, bertoni. Speaking from my experience, developing your sense of patience is critical to this hobby. It starts now. :)