Need help with an ID please

asylumdown · #1 01-12-2011, 03:11 AM

Well, two ID's really.

1. The small, white anemone in the centre of this picture - I recently re-arranged all the rock in my tank, and that nem would have been growing under one of them in complete darkness. It's not in full MH light. Since I took that pic it's turned slightly pink.

2. The green LPS looking thing in the same picture right at the top. It started growing spontaneously on a piece of base rock that a colony (which perished ages ago in an alk crash) came on. At first I thought it was a majano anemone, but then I realized that it actually has a calcified skeleton. It doesn't get any taller, but it's spread dramatically in the past few months. It looks like a super tiny, short version of a torch coral. It's got really aggressive sweeper tentacles that come out at night that have been killing the small yellow/green sps underneath it (also a hitchhiker, it started on that rock as a single polyp), so one of the two of them is about to get moved.

noirsphynx · #2 01-12-2011, 03:20 AM

#1 - orange ball anemone, don't worry too much about it.
#2 - unsure. A better, close-up pic would help

asylumdown · #3 01-12-2011, 05:05 AM

wow, your'e totally right about the anemone. I waited until the lights went out and shined a flash light on it, the thing opened up like a flower.

I also realized that there are about 7 of them on that rock. The interwebs say that they can be fish eaters, but this thing is only about 1cm across. How big can I expect them to get?

I'll try and get a better pic of the LPS thing tomorrow. I just broke off the tiny SPS colony it was killing and re-epoxied it to a nearby rock.

noirsphynx · #4 01-12-2011, 05:24 AM

I have several in my tank as well and mine have stayed small and never caused any problems. There is conflicting information about them on the internet. I really like them and so long as it is the small variety I would not worry about it.

Nebthet · #5 01-12-2011, 05:24 AM

The ball anemones usually only get to about half an inch in size at the most so they cannot eat larger fish.

As for id#2 it sounds like you could have galaxia coral, which look like small grouped up version of torch corals. But I cannot tell by your pic.. a closer shot would be better.

Bloodasp · #6 01-12-2011, 06:18 AM

ricordea mushroom?

reefwars · #7 01-12-2011, 03:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nebthet

The ball anemones usually only get to about half an inch in size at the most so they cannot eat larger fish.

As for id#2 it sounds like you could have galaxia coral, which look like small grouped up version of torch corals. But I cannot tell by your pic.. a closer shot would be better.

actuall as dawn said it depends on the kind i started a thread a long time ago about them as i found orange carribean ball anemones on a rock i got from a friend, mine are about the size of a toonie and i feed it mysis.if you doubt their holding power or how strong they are put your finger in there ....one nem for me can hold a full cube of frozen... if you want it to grow then feed it lol i think they are beautiful and yes i doubt it willeat your fish thats for the larger species. is yours orange with white balls??

asylumdown · #8 01-12-2011, 06:29 PM

The anemone was all white until it moved in to the light, now it's turning white with a pink centre (around the mouth). The balls look like they're darkening too. I fed it some raw scallop last night, the thing can eat, wow.

Here's a pic of the other thing, sorry it's quite compressed, but you get the idea. it started as a single polyp that I thought was an anemone, I nearly nuked it (I thought it was a majano), but when I took the rock out of the water and it retracted, I could see that it had a calcified skeleton. That was about 7 months ago, and since then, the original single polyp has gotten way bigger, and that cluster of tentacles is about 12 different polyps. they're maybe 1cm tall, and the whole cluster is only about 4 cm across. At night it sends out ridiculously long sweeper tentacles that appear to be quite noxious, I just rescued another hitchhiker from the same rock from it last night. It appears to be an encrusting type, I don't think it will grow out off the rock. (sorry, i had to delete the first image to upload this one)

noirsphynx · #9 01-12-2011, 07:14 PM

To me it looks like a torch.

asylumdown · #10 01-12-2011, 07:15 PM

Just looked up galaxia corals, it could be one of those,

This pic: http://www.ratemyfishtank.com/photo-main.php/4154 looks like a lighter coloured version of mine, with waaaaay more polyps, and if I **** it off and it retracts, the individual polyps look kind of like this: http://reef.pantshead.com/?p=326

From the reading I've done it looks like I might not have moved the stuff I rescued from it far enough away.

crazy. This is all growing on a tiny piece of rock that was used as a base for another colony. An SPS (which I have yet to identify) started as a single polyp and is now a very mini colony, and then this thing started growing. There's another cluster of polyps on the other side of the rock too. The tank it came from must have been a very happy place to have so much spawning going on.