Anemone???

ChgoGoodGirl · Apr 17, 2020

Found this guy living inder gsp mat. Honestly for the last week or so I thought it was part of the gsp. I dont think it's an aiptasia because it doesn't have the long foot and when i disturbed it trying to get a pic, it moved to the other side of the gsp mat.

Also... It dropped a tenticle which attached to a rock for a while and seemed to move. When i got it out and into a cup it did keep moving for a while. I have experience with reef tanks but never did anemones so any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

35ppt · Apr 17, 2020

It's a soft coral eating nudibranch IIRC.

/Phyllodesmium nudibranch (Phyllodesmium briareum)

The Sea Slug Forum - Phyllodesmium briareum

ChgoGoodGirl · Apr 17, 2020

dang. It sure the heck is

Thanks for your help. I would have left it in there had you not answered.

ChgoGoodGirl · Apr 17, 2020

Follow up question.... Hie bad would it be for my gsp to leave the nudi in the tank? Its just so cool and beautiful, id hate to destroy him. I read that they dont eat coral as much as some do because they get some of their food from zooxanthellae.

If you have had experience with these little guys, please let me know what you did with them.

35ppt · Apr 17, 2020

ChgoGoodGirl said:
Follow up question.... Hie bad would it be for my gsp to leave the nudi in the tank? Its just so cool and beautiful, id hate to destroy him. I read that they dont eat coral as much as some do because they get some of their food from zooxanthellae.

If you have had experience with these little guys, please let me know what you did with them.

I've never kept them but I had the same thought when reading up on them. They're so cool I'd love to just feed it GSP and keep it. But who knows what other corals it may go after. Probably not worth the risk in your main DT. I'd probably setup a 10g with GSP for him.

Stutters · Apr 17, 2020

get it out! they eat corals.

35ppt · Apr 19, 2020

/Oops, wrong thread.

ChgoGoodGirl · Apr 19, 2020

Just thought id give an update...

So i took the rock with the gsp rock out, pulled up the mat and tried to remove the nudi. It didn't go well. He was really stuck on there and basically fell apart as I tried to pull him off. At one point he even seemed yo break in half. Ill be honest - I felt terrible. When i finally felt like i removed him completely, I glued the mat down and got the rock back in the tank.

Then I had to figure out what to so with all his little body parts mind you they are all wiggling around like detached centipede legs in my makeshift operating room (by that I mean a Tupperware container. ) by this time Im really feeling bad and having second thoughts about what I did so I put all his wiggly little parts into a recovery room (a smaller tuperware container with holes drilled in the top) and a cut off piece of the gsp mat in hopes that maybe some weird little part of him was still alive. Since then I did a lot of reading about that particular type of nudibranch. They are such amazing little creatures. I just came back from checking on the tank and wouldn't you know it - that little guy survived.

I get that he's pest and will eat some of my gsp but I can live with that. I dont know how long he'll survive after what I did to him but I know I'll enjoy watching him as much as any fish I ever had.

The lesson I learned was to not make decisions in haste when it comes to hitchhikers in my tank. I should have weighed all my options and done my research before deciding to take him out.