is this Aiptasia?

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Hey guys
I have small buggers like this in my tank, but its way to small to take a pic buts its exactly like this. what is it?

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Hmm... looks like a kind of clove polyp to me, Clavularia sp.
 
Agree with Sihaya..especially the base structure..seems creepingly like Clove Polyps does..
 
Different species are found all over. Some can actually become pests. I had a colony once that was worse than aptasia. ::sigh::
 
Sorry, I disagree...

That is Alcyonium sp. / Chilli Coral... The polyps and red colouration gives it away. That orange you see there is a sponge that can overgrow the coral, and kill it. I would imagine the coral survived or what also happens is that the mother colony is fragged, and a piece tears off and stays behind. Then the coral will just regrow.

Chili coral is probably the hardiest of all the NPS, so this is quite possible for them.

Look out for the caclium spinicules, you might see them in the base. Have a look at my NPS threads regarding care and feeding, but if you do not want it, send it my way!!!

Here is a closeup of my chili so you can compare the tentacles:

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Oh, more proof that it is not aiptasia is that this is an octocoral (polyps has 8 tentacles) and aiptasia has much more, and undefined tentacles per polyp.

Also, these polyps have "hooks" on them for prey capture, where as aiptasia has smooth tentacles...
 
Thank you Jaco
The pic up there isnt mine, I took it of the web, but it looks similar, I plan on keeping them but just need a proper ID so I know what I have and how do I look after it, which of these guys do you think we will find local? I will try my best to take a pic of the guys in my tank. but they like 3mm long or something.
 
If it's not yours, then rather take a photo of yours and post. But count the tentacles, see whether or not it is a octocoral etc.

Lets see...;)
 
Eish, I dont have a micro lens so these pic's suck....
And they do have hook like tentacles

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Yeah.... still a bit difficult to judge, but I would recon defintely an NPS of some sort. Still gonna go with chilli coral, but keep an eye on it. Would defintely not classify it as aiptasia, so I dont think you have to kill it. Rather feed it regularly and see what it is once it is grown...
 
Awesome Thank man,
It took 2 months to get to the size, it was really really small and thats how I knew it wasnt aiptasia because aiptasia grows fast, What should I feed it and any special dosing?
 
Yeah, you can just feed it some Reef Snow, or Zoo and Phyto plankton. If you have cyclopeeze feed that, or crushed frozen brine, mysis or rotifiers will all go off well...

Feed it every second or third day max, and best way for such a small specimen is to use a syringe or turkey blaster and squirt food over it. It will take about 3 minutes to consume the food and then it will open up again and you can feed once more.

The more you can feed, the faster it will grow, so if you can feed daily it would just be so much better.

As mentioned before, if it is Chilli, which I do think it is, it is not too difficult to keep. Keep us updated as it grows huh???
 
Not aiptasia imho, they also dont tend to grow ontop of each other like that

Then you haven't seen my tank... :p LOL!!!

My aiptasia grow like freakin star polyps... But I agree, in most "healthy" aiptasia conditions they would grow more indivually and not colonised.
 
Thanks so much Jaco, i've seen your tank nps tank and i definitely want them to grow, but I have a hermit and two coral bandeds what will happen if they happen to walk over it and I have another growth which I spotted the other that has a stem and looks like more of these guys growing on the stem but they are like literally 1mm long and the stem is about 5 to 6 mm long...im hoping that the stem could be something like your Menella Gorgonian im so excited.... once they get bigger I will start a thread for them, I have no idea where these guys came from, but happy to see some new surprise growth in my tank
:thumbup:
 
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