Id Needed

[jonnyf84]

Hi all, i recently bought some live rock, along with bristle worms and crabs i've found loads of these, some kind of brittle star? I see their legs poking out of rocks everywhere but today 2 were on the glass near the intake, what are these and what are the pro's and con's?

I found this today as well, aiptasia maybe? If so, what is the best course of action to get rid?
Also, just below you can see a couple of a brittle starslegs poking out a crevice

 

[seffieuk]

Ah, lovely little brittle stars, excellent members of the cuc


Oh no, dreaded Aptaisia, take the rock out and stick a soldering in to their hole and watch the little burn

How about telling us a bit about your tank and yourself? Oh and

Seffie x

 

[jonnyf84]

Ah, lovely little brittle stars, excellent members of the cuc


Oh no, dreaded Aptaisia, take the rock out and stick a soldering in to their hole and watch the little burn

How about telling us a bit about your tank and yourself? Oh and

Seffie x

Thanks for the welcome, and the info. I'm glad to hear the brittle stars are good as there's plenty of them. Unfortunately i don't have a blow torch or solder iron and i don't really want to go down the chemical route, what can i do?

As you've guessed i've just turned to the salty side from planted and brackish, the marines in a 125L, just bought 14Kg of live rock, well cured and with good algae growth, it came with a few lovely mushrooms and polyps attached, hope to get another 6Kg by the end of the week, T5's 24W korellen zucht white and 24W Narva blue, aquaone 1250 external with live rock inside, koralia 2 pump, coral sand and a air driven protein skimmer which i hope to replace in the near future. Unfortunately i've got a couple of bristle worms, i know that the smaller ones aren't too much to worry about as long as they'r not disturbing corals but i have a 6"+ one in there, i've only had one oppurtunity to grab the sucker, it was between 2 holes in the rock so i gripped the middle of what i could see with my planting tweezers but luck was with the worm this time and i just pulled half an inch of its back end, i will prevail!!!!

As far as myself it's family, footy and fish, the 3 glorious F's, i've been keeping fish since i could get my arm in a tank and i work at a LFS - I'm one of the good guys, honest

About that aptaisia. would injecting boiling water work?

 

[bae1994]

injecting boiling ro is a method of killing aptasia my weapon of choice was a blow torch now a file fish

good luck

 

[seffieuk]

The problem with boiling water and the like is the aips move as soon as they feel the water so they then just turn up elsewhere. Give aptasiaX ago, some people have had luck with it


Leave the poor bristleworm alone he is a good member of your cuc and six inches is really not big

Seffie x

ps you came the same route as me, I had a brackish tank before salt

 

[GAB99]

i have to ask, do all aiptasia live in holes?? all pics ive seen were them in holes

 

[-Nemo-]

I've actually seen more aiptasia that don't live in holes than do... Makes it tons easier to get rid of them.

 

[sorgan]

I have seen one growing on glass. The weirdest one I saw was on someones powerhead.

 

[milkton]

i once found my hermit crab with an aiptasia on it's shell - the first time i was excited seeing aiptasia

as for the aiptasia problem there are 3 methods - biological, mechanical, and chemical

biological - peppermint shrimp, some tilefish i believe, copperband butterfly's usually work

mechanical- what seffie said - i once tried that and yeah... my ammonia skyrocketted due to the dieoff from the rock lol

chemical- now i use joe's juice to get rid of my aiptasia, it works really well all you do is spread it across the oral disk and it swallows it. (stay on topic guys ) but i've heard and seen many vids where people use normal pure lemon juice and injects the aiptasia with it through a pippette/syringe