hundreds of aiptasias, shrimp not eating em

[tdwyatt]

I had not considered that the shrimp might be able to catch these medusae from the water column, but I guess that is what is happening. I still don't think the shrimp will be able to predate the medusae to eradication, but I suppose it is possible given enough shrimp and slow water movement for the medusae to settle in.

How unusual for the shrimp to eat these, even though they are distantly related to Aiptasia. Maybe they will eat Anemonea cf. majano given enough pressure from hunger...

[Jadinop]

Originally Posted by 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.

I tapped out of this thread when the discussion turned to hydroids but I'm still certain that they are not in fact hydroids. They are a type of anemone that "swims" when free floating. Whether you have these in your tank for months or years, they will never change into any other form. They will increase in size but don't get much bigger than a dime or nickel. They can be prolific but are easier to erradicate than aiptasia due to the fact that they do not retract. As you have learned, the peppermints will go after them aggressively and in my experience will clear them up faster than aiptasia. I do not believe that peppermints are known to work with hydroids of any stage.

[tdwyatt]

Originally Posted by Jadinop

I tapped out of this thread when the discussion turned to hydroids but I'm still certain that they are not in fact hydroids. They are a type of anemone that "swims" when free floating...

Although I agree with the statement that it is unlikely that the Pepps ate hydroids, I don't think they eat fish food in the wild either. Somehow peppermint shrimp have learned to deal with the nematocysts of the Aiptasia, so I can see that they may have learned to deal with the medusae of Hydrozoans in that morphism. With 3700 extant spp. known to science, it is a little difficult for me to say with any certanty (and without good macrophotographs) WHAT these are (hopefully we may have resolved this).

See: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.ed.../Hydrozoa.html

Regarding Aiptasia spp., I went to several sites and looked for swimming spp., this is representative of what is available both in print and on the 'Net:
http://webs.lander.edu/rsfox/inverte.../aiptasia.html

Aptaisiidae:
Glass Anemones are comprised of seven or so species of the family Aptaisiidae. They are uniformly light brownish (due to endosymbiotic dinoflagellates) to clear (sometimes called Glass Anemones or Glass Aiptasia), and range in size from tiny to a few inches tall, with disc diameters of 1 or 2 inches. I am still searching through hexacorallian literature for a reference to the 'free-swimming aiptasia," and have not found any reference to any of these creatures being mre than a polyped Actinarian. Could you send me a reference and photo on its morphology/taxonomy, or post it here?

I found one old note regarding how they might swim in an unreferenced note in a text: Aiptasia pallida may swim by ciliary action in spirals (Lenhoff and Muscatine, 1974), but could not find any confirmation regrding this behavior (Muscatine, L., H. Lenhoff. 1974. Coelenterate Biology: Reviews and New Perspectives. New York: Academic Press), and it was a very old reference, In fact, the references I DID find were more of the comments mad n page 9 of this studay: http://bhdickerson.com/docs/Barash_Dickerson_paper.pdf

However, absence of evidence is NOT evidence of absence, so I remain open on this topic, and would like to see what reference info you do have (especially some good clear macropics of these free-swimming Aiptasia ) . Research over the last 30 or so years on this find that settlement and permanent attachmenbt is an important factor in the speed at which these Actinarians develop from their free-swimming planular forms to tentacled adults. Free-swimming adults would be an interesting morphological form, evidently unknown for the seven known spp. of Aiptasia

I generally do not care for wikipedia, but the info here matches that available in Invert zoo texts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiptasia

three pages of Hydrozoan pix:
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.ed.../Hydrozoa.html


Very interested in whatever info you have, and I'm anxiously awaiting your reply.

[ReefChris]

Tried all the Aiptasia killing methods without lasting success ...

Raccoon Butterfly fish eat Aiptasia and will survive after they're gone (and
thus keep re-emergence of the pests at bay).