hundreds of aiptasias, shrimp not eating em

[aquawolf]

That is a wild looking little critter. Tough to it seems as it did not mind being touched repeatedly by the pliers.

I wish you the best in getting rid of them.

[aquawolf]

If Berghia will even eat them, then when they are finished you will need to give them to someone else who has an aiptasia problem. If yours come back, then you can continue trading the Berghia back and forth, otherwise they will simply starve to death.

[tdwyatt]

If allowed the time to develope without being disturbed, I imagine you will begin to find aduts that fit this general morphology for the adult hydrozoans. This is a short-lived form and is usually seen after the medeusa phase has settled. Reproduction occurs as the medusa are held in a sheath (gonotheca) and released from the reproductive organs (gonozooid).




The key is the description of the free-swimming meduseal form, and that they are easily dislodged from their settlement points, definitely not true for Anemonea nor for Aiptasia spp.. These medusa forms do not have a body tube (stalk) and may or may not be self-limiting in the tank. As they develope, a short tube begins to form and the adult settlement form begins. This is usually heralded by initial settlement of masses of the medusa forms on rock or glass or suitable other horizontal surfaces.



Although some types of Anemonea cf. majano may detach and appear to be free-swimming temporarily, they appear as well-established colonies starting with a few and developing into infestationus before they begin to detach. As they detach, they are not swimmers, rather they drift with the current and have no ability to direct their path ( and are not attracted to light as are the medusa forms). They also have easily recognized body tubes.




Brown FA (ed.) 1950. Selected Invertebrate Types. Wiley, New York. 597p.

Bullough. WS. 1958. Practical Invertebrate Anatomy (2 nd ed). MacMillan, London. 483p.

Ruppert EE, Fox RS, Barnes RB. 2004. Invertebrate Zoology, A functional evolutionary approach, 7 th ed. Brooks Cole Thomson, Belmont CA. 963 pp.

Thomas MB, Edwards NC. 1991. Cnidaria: Hydrozoa. Pp 91-183 in Harrison FW, Westfall JA (eds). Microscopical Anatomy of Invertebrates, vol. 2. Wiley-Liss, New York.

[tdwyatt]

Amazingly enough, I have been able to find the Ruppert and Barnes in many public libraries, so if you're interested in more info, you can probably find this text easily, although it may not identify the exact genus and specie you have.

Spartanburg Co Library has and older edition of this text, sp I'm sure that towns of >100,000 should have it.

[sks4613]

The berghias are pretty tiny. After they are gone remove what you can pass them on or yes they will starve.

[Blurple90]

I had an aiptaisia problem about a month ago and used a syringe to inject them with vinegar. It doesnt take much and it works great.

[tdwyatt]

not to beat a dead horse, but Berghia will not eat these, although kalk paste will caustically remove hydroids, removing then with Vinegar will be questionable at best, either that or you'll need so much vinegar to treat a hydroid mat that it will adversely affect the water chemistry for the tank, especially if it is a small tank. Vinegar will probably treat a single specimen, but if there are a number of hydroids, the acetic acid in vinegar along with its organic content will not give you results that you can enjoy.

[Phishnoob]

Originally Posted by tdwyatt

If allowed the time to develope without being disturbed, I imagine you will begin to find aduts that fit this general morphology for the adult hydrozoans. This is a short-lived form and is usually seen after the medeusa phase has settled. Reproduction occurs as the medusa are held in a sheath (gonotheca) and released from the reproductive organs (gonozooid).




The key is the description of the free-swimming meduseal form, and that they are easily dislodged from their settlement points, definitely not true for Anemonea nor for Aiptasia spp.. These medusa forms do not have a body tube (stalk) and may or may not be self-limiting in the tank. As they develope, a short tube begins to form and the adult settlement form begins. This is usually heralded by initial settlement of masses of the medusa forms on rock or glass or suitable other horizontal surfaces.



Although some types of Anemonea cf. majano may detach and appear to be free-swimming temporarily, they appear as well-established colonies starting with a few and developing into infestationus before they begin to detach. As they detach, they are not swimmers, rather they drift with the current and have no ability to direct their path ( and are not attracted to light as are the medusa forms). They also have easily recognized body tubes.




Brown FA (ed.) 1950. Selected Invertebrate Types. Wiley, New York. 597p.

Bullough. WS. 1958. Practical Invertebrate Anatomy (2 nd ed). MacMillan, London. 483p.

Ruppert EE, Fox RS, Barnes RB. 2004. Invertebrate Zoology, A functional evolutionary approach, 7 th ed. Brooks Cole Thomson, Belmont CA. 963 pp.

Thomas MB, Edwards NC. 1991. Cnidaria: Hydrozoa. Pp 91-183 in Harrison FW, Westfall JA (eds). Microscopical Anatomy of Invertebrates, vol. 2. Wiley-Liss, New York.

Pictures, lots of text and footnotes. Now what other forum has anyone that can keep up with TDW!!! (now can someone tell me what all that was?)

[Cuttlefish]

Actually, I found a prety good way of getting rid of them. I completely removed about 30 in 5-10 minutes by using a simple squirt stick that came with my Hagen Iron test kit. I just squeeze the bubble part in as much as i can then use the tip to scrape the little bastids off while releasing the bubble. Sucks em right up into the stick. A couple times they got away for a second and tried to swim after being dislodged. Easy pickins at that point. You just depress the squirt stick and suck em on in. No need for chemicals or Nudibranches, shrimp etc. Just suck em in and blast em into bucket

Necessity is the mother of invention eh? It might not be as effective for true Aiptasia but it definetly works for these things. Whats the final verdict on them anyway, Brown Scraggly Hydroids? Brown Hydroids in Medusa stage? I guess the name isnt all that important to me, all I care about is that they are gone.

[tdwyatt]

Originally Posted by Cuttlefish

What's the final verdict on (the ID for) them anyway, Brown Scraggly Hydroids? Brown Hydroids in Medusa stage? I guess the name isnt all that important to me, all I care about is that they are gone.

I'm not sure of a genus or specie name without much more morphological info, but the fact that you can remove them via suction makes them definitely hydroids of some sort in their medusa stage of development.

Better get them while they are easy to remove in this meduseal stage, the next stage in their develpment is difficult to remove.


HTH

[tdwyatt]

BTW, If you'll send a few of these to me in some rubbing alcohol, I'll put them under the 'scope and photograph them and attempt an ID for you. If you're interested, PM me for more info on prep for shipping them to me.

[Cuttlefish]

Ya know what guys? I left a few ..lets just call em medusa's.. in the left half of the fuge. 6 days after i acclimated the peppermints, the Medusa critters are GONE. So maybe this will shed more light on what species they could be, cuz something ate em. Im assuming its the Peppermints cuz all of sudden they are active when for the first week all they did was cling to the bottom of rock and sway back n forth.

So thats good news right!? It means if I unleash a posse of shrimp into the COMPLETELY infested macro section, they will take care of em for me! Maybe I just have some mutated aiptasias or Peppermint shrimp also have a taste for medusa-ass brown hydroids. Either way I dont have to do NUTTIN but let them chow down!

Thank god.

[tdwyatt]

Originally Posted by Cuttlefish

Ya know what guys? I left a few ..lets just call em medusa's.. in the left half of the fuge. 6 days after i acclimated the peppermints, the Medusa critters are GONE. So maybe this will shed more light on what species they could be, cuz something ate em. Im assuming its the Peppermints cuz all of sudden they are active when for the first week all they did was cling to the bottom of rock and sway back n forth.


So thats good news right!? It means if I unleash a posse of shrimp into the COMPLETELY infested macro section, they will take care of em for me!

The Peppermints most likely did NOT eat them, the time table would have been right for the medusae (plural for medusa) to reproduce sexually and die. It would appear as if the medusae have all disappeared, when actually they have produced gametes, released them, and died off. Once the gametes are released, the fertilized eggs grow into the planula, which grow into young hydroid colonies that start the growth cycle all over again.

This multi morphic life cycle is true for all Cnidarians ( including most corals), though different genera may nt go through 4 stages like Obelia does. As a phylum, they are:

1. aquatic, radially symmetrical animal that have tentacles surrounding a single opening mouth that is the only opening to the gut cavity (they are basically a bag with a simple opening for both ingesting food and expelling waste items).
2. have two body forms: a medusa that lives a pelagic life and is well-developed for swimming, and a polyp form, that usually attaches to the bottom or substrate to live a bnthic life. For this reason, evolution has made Cnidarians most often colonial animals.
3. two-layered bodies consisting of an outer epidermis, an inner gastrodermis, which both sandwich a middle layer if mesoglea, which may be either a thin basal lamina or a thick, acellular or cellular connective tissue.
4. primitive, in that they lack organs as collections of specialized tissues, a predominance of myoepithelial cells, and the diploblastic origin of the adult body tissues as ectoderm and endoderm germ cell layers.
5. almost all feeders on zooplankton, although some feed on larger animals (mesoplankton or even larger crustaceans like mysiids, etc.). A few genera are suspension feeders and take in fine suspended particulate matter from the water column. Zooplankter prey is captured via stinging cells (cnidocytes) unique to the phylum, and are assimilated through the single os via tentacular capture.
6. devoid of more than a simple nervous system, and what little neuron mass that exist in their bodies is usually arranged as nerve nets at the base of the epidermis and gastrodermis layers, with impulse transmission occurring as depolarization after an initial polarization of these nerve nets tending to be radial from a point of stimulation (little or no CNS development or activity). The synaptic junctions tend to be non-polarized, and for these reasons, nerve-related motion or impulse transmission throughout the body tends to be slow compared to higher animals.
7. sexually reproduced with a free-swimming stereogastrula (plaunla larvae), which occurs in the life cycle of most cnidarians.

Although there are some hydrozoans that display only the medusoid form, almost all hydrozoan spp. have a polyped stage in their life cycle. Although some hydrozoans display either the polyped or medusal part of their life cycle as their main form, there are three characteristics that are definitely common to all members of this class ( Class Hydrozoa ): the mesoglea lacks cells; the gastrodermis lacks cnidocytes; and the gonads are found most often in the epidermis (or if they’re in the gastrodermal layer, the gametes are shed directly to the outside of the body and do not pass through the gastric cavity).


HTH

[Cuttlefish]

There are still plenty of Aiptasia in the MT and already the numbers are beginning to rise again in the MT from the last time I sucked em into a squirt stick. Only the section with the Pep shrimp is free of these things. So I needed to find out if the shrimp do eat them. I did an lil experiment and detailed the results in the next post...

[Cuttlefish]

I just squirted one of the swimming hydroids in the general vacinity of a peppermint shrimp. I never seen the shrimp move so fast. He shot 6 inches across the rock to retrieve the hydroid and is currently devouring it. In fact another shrimp joined him in the carnage. So thats gotta narrow it down somewhat right? Could it just be a mutant form of aiptasia? I know its possible its aiptasia in the medause stage but unless this stage lasts for many months, Id have to say its just what these things do, swim.