Hitchhiker ID's please

[LBFish]

I have found several hitchhiker's growing in my new tank and was hopeful that I could get some identification on them and some advice as to whether they are bad for a reef tank. One I know is a feather duster of some sort, any add'l info would be great.

 

[daugherty]

the first i am not shure if it is good or bad could be a pest nem but it does not look like aptasia. the 2nd one looks like a button polyp which is a soft coral. the third is some kind of macro alage and the last is a feather duster they just filter feed. what kind of lights do you have on the tank.. the only thing i would maybe concerned about is the thing in the first pic.

 

[LBFish]

I have a 150w metal halide light. And I have found about 8 of the feather dusters, I was very happy to find those just because I think they are very pretty, as does my wife :)

 

[daugherty]

they are nice. you have a great setup so far. what are your plans for the tank what kind of coral are you thinking about

 

[LBFish]

I actually haven't picked out any corals yet. I started out more focused on fish so I had done a lot of research and picking out fish. But the more I got into it, the more I got interested in corals. I know I love the look of polyps. And I know I would love to have a blue clam in there at some point. But i'm taking it very slow. I ran the tank for 6 weeks before I put any fish in there. I'm thinking I want to start with something that is fairly hardy and low cost. I'm really worried about making mistakes early on and killing fish or corals.

 

[daugherty]

i just ask because i think both are important to plan out. like getiing a little clown goby they are great fish for small tanks but if you get sps corals they can nip at the polyps of the sps and kill them

 

[LBFish]

I have thought about that recently and started looking more closely at which fish and crabs are safe for all corals and starting to limit my fish list.

The only fish I plan to get for sure is a clown fish, the black one w/ an orange face. My wife loves them and it is her only request as I embark on this expensive endeavor.

 

[Smitty]

Hey, just to let you know, that first pic is a mojano anemone...very bad pest...you're gonna want to get rid of it before it multiplies. They will sting any coral that get too close to it. The other pics agree with James, they are reef safe, just watch that algae, in pic #3, so that it does not over grow the rocks...it can overcrowd corals and shade them.

 

[Bifferwine]

Smitty is right, the first picture is definitly majano. Kill it now! Get rid of it! I used to have a 240 gallon tank, and one small majano that I neglected had spread to every single rock in the tank within a year. It was out of control. I had hundreds of them, and they killed almost all my corals. I ended up removing all my rocks, and boiling them one by one. Which you do not want to have to do!!

The bad thing about majano is that there really is no natural "cure". There are no animals that you can add that eat them.

If it's on a small rock, I recommend removing the rock and putting it in a pot of boiling water for 20 minutes or so.

If it's on a large rock, or a rock that has other living things on it, you don't want to boil it. In that case, pick up a chemical called Aiptasia X from your fish store, or order it online. You will need to inject the majano with Aiptasia X (the kit comes with everything you need).

There are other treatments that people will recommend -- injecting them with lemon juice, boiling water, vinegar, salt paste, or calcium paste. I've tried all of those, and Aiptasia X has by far been the most effective treatment for majano.

 

[fastrd400]

I have to agree with Biff. Same thing happened to me, neglected to take proper steps and next thing I knew, they were every where. I used Chem - Marine Stop Aiptasia. Used the syringe and ingected the little suckers. Was actually kinda fun to watch em shrivel up and die. Toke a couple days to get them all but there are now none left and it only harmed the intended targets

 

[parrotchute]

#2 might be a folded up majano, I don't think it's a button polyp

 

[dcantucson]

+1 parrotchute. Majanos! KILL them or they will make you want to kill yourself when they take over your tank!

 

[LBFish]

How can I tell for sure if #2 is a majano? #1 and #2 look nothing alike, outside of color, and their behavior is different as well. #1 kinda stands up when the light is off and hugs the rock when it is on. #2 will kinda close up and open up like a little mouth once in a while, but doesn't have a stem to stand up like #1.

 

[Bifferwine]

I think #2 is a button polyp. I don't think it's a majano.

 

[LBFish]

As an update to the #2 pic, which was decided to be a button polyp here is a picture of what it looks like now. When I moved around some rocks a while back I discovered there was another one growing that I couldn't see at that time. Now there are also two baby ones growing too!

 

[IraqVeteran]

I have been battling the majano's myself and I found this thread to find out what I could do. I have tried all kinds of things such as the injections. I even put the rocks in buckets of freshwater overnight and that killed some of them but not all. I tried the lemon juice injections and that did nothing. I finally took a brand new sheetrock (box cutter) and cut them off of the rock while in the tank. They came off pretty easily. If you cut just under them you can cut a small sliver of rock off and the whole mojano comes off without leaving a piece behind.

I do wish there were a better way of getting rid of them though because it was a pain in the ass to do especially since a lot of them were on rocks with my SPS corals and that was hard to not damage those. But it has been a week since I got rid of them and my corals are fine so I hope more of those turds dont pop back up in my tank ( I am sure they will though)

 

[Bifferwine]

Have you tried using Aiptasia X? It's the only thing I've found that actually works pretty well.

 

[yote]

+1 on the Aiptasia-X.That stuff will work.

Its good to see you posting again Iraq.

 

[daugherty]

yes welcome back