Life in the tank! Aiptasia?

[PamBrent71]

New tank, only about 2 weeks old. Still letting water cycle/stabilize before adding any livestock. So far we found 3 different tube worms (feather dusters) and ... this mystery thing. I think it's probably Aiptasia and we should kill it (be sure it's dead before we add purchased livestock). BF disagrees, thinks it could easily be something nice & we should wait to see what it becomes. We have live rock, and that's where these first critters came from.

Anyone want to settle a debate? Do we kill it or is it a good thing?

 

[andlim]

Might be a Mojano anemone

 

[Reefer508]

Majano anemone....pest

 

[BiGGiePauls33]

Looks like possibly strawberry ball anemone

 

[GraniteReefer]

+1 ball anemone. Never reached plague proportions in my tank, never saw negative side effects.

 

[cablez]

Looks like a ball nem, I had them in previous tanks really no ill effects from them that I seen

 

[BiGGiePauls33]

@PamBrent71 this is what aptasia will look like.

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[PamBrent71]

Thank you! We will let it live (for now). I appreciate the pics of the Aiptasia, I had looked up so many images but they all seemed to look sorta like this little mystery blob, but finding pics of "very young aiptasia" wasn't getting any good pics. I think the key discriminator is beige-brown body & tentacles, and a stalk or pedestal base that protrudes from the rock surface. Our blob is too small to see if it has a stalk/pedestal, and it's got almost no color to it - but if I had to guess a color I'd say clear-pink and not beige.

 

[Fishguy]

I've got a few in my tank, haven't spread or moved in 5 months. been leaving them alone.. mine has gold coloration to it that's kinda neat.

 

[Fishguy]

Grabbed a pic of the one in my tank, the white dots around it are at the end of it's tentacles.