Anemone arms

[jmorgret]

Due to a nasty algae outbreak I had to move the contents of my 55g into two 30g. This was months ago, the 55g is up and running again. When I went to move my condy, I forgot to turn off the MJ powerhead and he kind of had his arms up in there and lost about three of them. Anyway, he is now doing fine but when I went past the tank the other day, I noticed what looked like a anemone arm coming out from a hole in my rock, except it was almost black. Is it possible one of those arms is still alive in my rock or is that something else?? When I shine a light on it to see it, it receded back into the rock.

 

[exoticaquatix]

sounds more like a worm to me. the severed arm of an anemone, to the best of my knowledge, will not survive let alone grow into a new anemone. if this were true you would see tissue cultured anemones for sale everywhere and for dirt cheap. without getting too technical the cells of the "arms" only know how to be "arms", they cant form other tissue types (the oral disc, foot, ect.) hope that helps.
-nick

 

[jmorgret]

Hmm...any idea of what kind of worm it may be? I saw it about an inch and a half long, again looked almost black.

 

[delphinus]

I'd guess a peanut worm. There's a fuzzy pic of one at RDO's hitchhiker page: http://www.reefs.org/hhfaq/pages/main_pages/faq_rock3.htm