jelly fish

[an-enemy]

today i was staring into my tank and i see some mushroom looking thing that is moving around like a jelly fish. is this a jelly fish? it is to small to take a picture of and if it is, is it reef safe?


thanks ryan

[an-enemy]

bump

[bendavis]

well, generally, when no one responds, it isnt because nobody cares, keep that in mind. i dont really think we have enough information to determine what it is. do you notice any tentacles or antenea from the top of it? can you see anything inside of it, are you sure it is even alive? have you seen it again since your post? anyways. sorry that this post wasnt any help, hopefully someone a little more experienced will comment.

-Ben

[GotSalt?]

ok well lets assume it is a jelly fish. what should he do with it.

[an-enemy]

it looks like it has some tentacles and it is alive cause it can move on its own and it moves like a jelly fish.

[bigfoot610]

my baby aptasia look like that
:)

[GotSalt?]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6844954#post6844954 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bigfoot610
my baby aptasia look like that
:)

it could swim?

[bigfoot610]

yup there was a bunch of em i thought they were jellyfish but they attached to the glass and as of right now they are big fat aptasia in the fuge :)

[The Haj]

I had this happen to me one time whe I was curing some liverock. They did not live that long,Although they made some fish food I guess?

[gsxrguru2]

He could get a sea turtle to eat them, right? :D

[FishinInTheDark]

Try Googling "medusae hydroids".

[jdallred]

Conni is actually on to what you might be seeing. Part of the life cycle of Hydroids is the medusae, which from what I understand is a free floating stage. Typically most reefers notice them when they are attached to the tank walls;

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c188/dixonallred/pest0.jpg

I have also read a few threads that talk about a free floating stage of aiptasia but haven't found anything that supports it.

[castorpollux]

ive also heard of freshly hatched brine shrimp mutating into hydroids as well and that could be it, i have seen exactly whats in the photo that jdallred posted usually in dwarf seahorse tanks because they are fed day old brine

[an-enemy]

it doesnt attach to the the tank but swims around and it looks nothing like that picture.

[djmod45]

OK, so at this point I think it's obvious that you need to take a picture for the forum if you want it identified otherwise there will continue to be informational stabs in the dark :). Just a thought.

[zombiereef]

are they about 2-3mm across and look like they have about 5 or 6 white tentacles? do they pulse around the tank very quickly? i had these and beleive them to be the hydroids mentioned earlier. the fish loved to eat them. never seemed to cause harm as far as i can tell.

[an-enemy]

^^^^ yes. but my fish never go after it. i have two true percs.

[stugray]

Ok, now hold on here.

1 - I was told I have 'hydroids' ( see 'help - algae ID?' in RMRC ).
The 'hydroids' that I am talking about do NOT swim around, they are stationary, and grow like weeds. They are Myrionema amboinensis (aka pompom hydroids). Here's a link to pics:

http://web.archive.org/web/20001212142000/http://www.animalnetwork.com/fish2/aqfm/1997/oct/features/1/default.asp

2 - 'my baby aptasia look like that' ..... if aiptasia can swim around, then that's a new one on me. Ive seen them move, but Ive never seen one floating free.

3 - 'ive also heard of freshly hatched brine shrimp mutating into hydroids' WHAT!?! now where did that come from? I'd be interested to learn more there......

4 - I have seen a small jellyfish that exotic aquatics got in once by accident. I dont recall what they thought it was, but it looked just like a mushroom cap ( the kind we eat in spagetti sauce ) with tentacles swimming around, about 2 inches in diameter. It mostly bounced off the bottom as it swam. They said that it's chances of survival were slim. There's not much info on what they eat.

Stu

[jdallred]

Stu here is an article that might help clear things up about hydroid medusae.

http://www.reefs.org/library/aquarium_net/1097/1097_2.html

I would also like to have more info on the brine shrimp/hydroid thing. Seems kind of fishy to me.

[roguemonk]

Yeah, for a brine shrimp to "mutate" into a hydroid would require it to cross over into a different phylum (kind of like a human mutating into a shrimp). Unless we've completely missed the boat in our classifications, that seems implausible.

Brad

[FishinInTheDark]

Hydroids don't "mutate" from brine shrimp, but they do frequently hitchike their ways in via brine capsules. They hatch along with the artemia and then get transfered into the tank. Seahorse tanks do have troubles with these for that reason.

[castorpollux]

that could be it then, its just some random thing i had heard from someone reputable, and they are always prevelant in seahorse tanks so it seemed somewhat believable, i can't find any info on it on the internet and fishininthedark may have cleared up the reason why. :)

[rich_tilbury]

I had a cassiopia jellyfish appear in my sump shortly after I set up my tank. First spotted as polyps then free floating tiny thing which grew to be around 2-3 cm across. It survived for 9 months then disappeared, presumed dead.

It looked similar to this: http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/scateg.cfm?pCatId=505

[an-enemy]

^^^ i looks some what like that but all white and a stem that made it look like a mushroom. it had some tentacles but are really really small.

[Pescados]

are there other posts on hydroids with good information?
Can someone whom has search find one of those posts?

[jdallred]

Pescados, did you get a chance to read the article I posted on the first page? I think you are going to be hard pressed to find a post that explains the hydroids any better than the article by Dr Ron.

[Pescados]

yes I did but still confused???
From another article on the "Staurocladia oahuensis, a.k.a hydrozoan jellyfish" it doesn't mention this as being the free floating stage as mentioned in your article. Also mentions that they are no worry. From reading your article the stinging cells part worried me.
I guess what I want to know is should you be worried of these?

[an-enemy]

id like to know that to?

[Pescados]

bump then :)

[Pescados]

where you at joe?

[jimboreefer]

I have these small hydroid colonies in my tank as well, I only see the medusa stage in my sump though ( low flow area) ~ .05 mm in size. It's got to the point where I'm having to kill some of the colonies due to them encroaching on other corals. The little jellys are cool to look at though

[Pescados]

Ok I founfd this...
<No fun... you may want to consider creating a scraper/siphon combination that would allow you to scape off a hydroid and immediately suck it out of the tank. You definitely don't want these floating around the tank. You may need to take more drastic action, I'm sorry to say. Hydroids are a pain - quite literally.>WWM
SO *** guys. 300+ views and no one chimed in the say that above?

[Pescados]

this is what I found on wwm...
No fun... you may want to consider creating a scraper/siphon combination that would allow you to scape off a hydroid and immediately suck it out of the tank. You definitely don't want these floating around the tank. You may need to take more drastic action, I'm sorry to say. Hydroids are a pain - quite literally.

[jdallred]

Pescados, sorry for not getting back to you sooner. My understanding is the hydroids we typically see in our aquariums are not harmful to humans at any stage of development. When they reach the polyp stage they can spread very quickly and are very harmful to corals. So they are not desired and should be removed if at all possible.

[Pescados]

OK... what you are saying this is like trying to get all the flees off a dog, a large dog...

Are you supposed to wait till these lil jellyfish turn into a what not polyp on the rock? Then remove?

But some of these are Gorgonians, so does that mean they could come from a gorgonian? Sea fans?