feather duster or aptasia anemone...

Ok, newbie here... I've been curing 40 lbs of marshall island rock in a 55 gallon tank. Anyway, it's been a week now and last night, I saw something, its kind of orangish right now, and I saw three of them in different parts of the rock. It ducks back into its little hole when startled. I'm just wondering if I should go ahead and get the peppermint shrimp this weekend to take them out, or if these are feather dusters.
Any ideas?

 

the brown ones are the aptasia's. i had three pretty large ones and the peppermint shrip ate those right away. one just popped back right next to my mushroom coral. it has a good duck spot, and when the taisa opens my coral wont open fully. but my shrimp are getting used to eating the falling fish food. im tring starving the tank for a day or two, so them shrimp will get hungry.
anyhow i would take care of them befor they get out of control.

 

Robnpg,

Welcome to 3 Reef!  Is it possible to post a picture?

Feather dusters are usually in a calcified tube they build....do you see anything like that at the base?

I have seen aiptasia described as "orange".  You could try injecting them with lemon juice or boiling water.  Do a search here on aiptasia, you will find several methods of ridding them.

The peppermint shrimp a. can sometimes be confusing as to what is a true peppermint and b. sometimes eats them and other times does not and c. they can bother coral polyps as well. :-/

So unless you really want a peppermint, perhaps you could try some other things first!

Here is a small article
http://www.reefs.org/library/article/hopkins_redfield.html

 

Hope this helps

 

I wish I was able to post a pic(they are so small right now). However, I noticed they(I see 3 so far) are all in a small tube. They duck back in really fast is they 'see' you. So hopefully they are dusters!
Thanks guys!

 

If they are in a tube then I would say they are feather dusters, :-/I have a bunch of them all over my rock, back glass of my tank and even in my sump, they are in small whitish tubes and have red feathers, and they retract back into there tube with the slightest movement or light change.
Aptasia will also retract back into it's hole but from what I have observed it is only when it is touched by something ( Like a syringe filled with white vinegar ) [smiley=hehe.gif]

 

Sorry to jump on the thread but my tank is new also and I saw some small feathery looking guys in skinny red tubes when I got home. I don't want to go an kill them if they are nice guys, but i'm not sure.

How do most people keep it contained? Peppermint shrimp? Do they mess with all of the other coral (I hope to have some eventually) also?

The thing I have is small, in tiny red tubes/holes, and are brown and 'feathery'
Any fish that like aiptasia but DONT eat coral?

 

Those sound like feather dusters to me.

 

feather dusters, small tube worms/ fan worms

beneficial filter feeders and dont harm anything
Aiptasia dont retract as quickly - so if your in any doubt just move quickly in front to the tank if they retract , dissapear then its not aiptasia

Steve

 

Thanks! Good to hear, I'm pretty sure they are feather dusters then. I can hardly get a look at them because every time I move they shoot back into their holes.