Baby anemone or hitchhiker

[Flighty]

Ok, someone needs to tell me this is a coincidence before I explode.

As some of you know I have been looking into anemone propagation specifically H. Magnifica. I have two orange based magnificas in the tank which are splits from a friend's magnifica. I also have a newer purple based specimen.

So when I put one of the splits into the tank it was in a bit of a rough shape from an accidental forced splitting, being moved around and some issues with a tank crash in my friend's system. Something blew off of it from near the unhealed cut. I tried to catch it, but it went into the rocks and into the middle of a digita colony. I couldn't find it again.

Long story short, I was removing that colony and found something..... Something with the exact same rusty orange base, but with tiny clear tentacles with pink balls at the tips. The tentacles are pretty dense and numerous. It is smaller than a dime. There are three similarly orange tiny things the size of very very small zoanthids near it that don't have apparent tentacles.

There is a bit of a green iridescent sheen to the bases of the tentacles on the larger anemone object.

I fed it some mysis and it aggressively grabbed about ten of them (hence the crummy photo)

<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/FlightyMail/AAAAAAAAAAnemone/photo#5000734268422357010"><img src="http://lh5.google.com/image/FlightyMail/RWYtUnVwABI/AAAAAAAACSk/ZBQVM4yV7Cw/s288/DSC04055.JPG"></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:66%; text-align:right">From <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/FlightyMail/AAAAAAAAAAnemone">AAAAAAAAAAnemone</a></td></tr></table>

Aaaaaaaaa Please tell me this is just a strangely colored hitchhiker strawberry anemone that has been in the tank for the 3 years it has been running without me ever noticing it. I might just explode if this is what I almost am letting myself just a little bit suspect.

Pic of the magnifica in question
<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/FlightyMail/AAAAAAAAAAnemone/photo#5000735153243226130"><img src="http://lh6.google.com/image/FlightyMail/RWYuIHjfABI/AAAAAAAACS0/obF9hSVu_gk/s288/DSC02022.JPG"></a>

(title changed by request)

 

[Flighty]

You can click on the pics for larger versions. I'm going to go stare at it and get better pics.

 

[Flighty]

A closeup of two of the teeny ones. you can clearly see an oral disk and tenticles comming out of an orange ball. See the ball tipped tenticles of the dime size one on the left for size reference.
--running off to get tweesers and a single cyclopseeze--
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/FlightyMail/AAAAAAAAAAnemone/photo#5000738266815070226"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/image/FlightyMail/RWYw9Wg3ABI/AAAAAAAACTI/1yzki7b2a88/s288/DSC04062.JPG"></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:66%; text-align:right">From <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/FlightyMail/AAAAAAAAAAnemone">AAAAAAAAAAnemone</a></td></tr></table>

 

[Flighty]

<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/FlightyMail/AAAAAAAAAAnemone/photo#5000752256001048594"><img src="http://lh6.google.com/image/FlightyMail/RWY9roStABI/AAAAAAAACTM/8zNwQtDc6lc/s288/DSC04078.JPG"></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:66%; text-align:right">From <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/FlightyMail/AAAAAAAAAAnemone">AAAAAAAAAAnemone</a></td></tr></table>
closed over the food. The tentacles are super sticky and sting my finger even through the callus.

<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/FlightyMail/AAAAAAAAAAnemone/photo#5000752265923723282"><img src="http://lh4.google.com/image/FlightyMail/RWY9sNQdABI/AAAAAAAACTc/j-yOKXlDWVE/s288/DSC04067.JPG"></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:66%; text-align:right">From <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/FlightyMail/AAAAAAAAAAnemone">AAAAAAAAAAnemone</a></td></tr></table>

 

[Flighty]

It has balled up a bit after eating. The black dot is a PE mysid eyeball. You can see the little one center bottom was squashed when I cut this piece of rock off and the ribbon like guts are hanging out.
<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/FlightyMail/AAAAAAAAAAnemone/photo#5000762079558434834"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/image/FlightyMail/RWZGnb5TABI/AAAAAAAACTk/V5TvWNo6SYc/s288/DSC04087.JPG"></a>

Moonlight with filter shot to see the tentacles of the candidate baby babies. Pic is slightly rotated with reference to the other one.
<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/FlightyMail/AAAAAAAAAAnemone/photo#5000762082865971218"><img src="http://lh5.google.com/image/FlightyMail/RWZGnoN4ABI/AAAAAAAACTs/y7CwvyZgM6Q/s288/DSC04081.JPG"></a>

Am I crazy to be getting excited about this? Is it going to turn out to be a mojano or something?

 

[SVXH6]

thats awesome.. i think it may be what you think it is.. IMO the tentacles and base look strikingly similar to the main H. Mag.. you can even see the green color to them.. i would keep feeding and see how big it gets.. if it starts splitting again, you know it may just be some pest form of anemone.. good luck with it, and monitor closely..

 

[Flighty]

Thanks for the response. I may go insane trying to figure this out. I'm shaking with trying not to be too excitedment. Someone needs to take me down and tell me I'm crazy.

 

[SVXH6]

fine... i think you may be a *little* crazy..lol.. but it looks remarkably similar and could possibly be.. just feed it as much as it wants.. i did have some of the little ball tip anemones(forget what they are called) that looked similar but have not seen one with a base like that.. so strikingly similar, but very well may not be.. time will tell..

 

[Anemone]

Corynactis, or pseudocorynactis - known as a ball anemone. Common hitchiker - whose translucent appearance and cryptic nature often keep them from being noticed. The ball tips on the tentacles are pretty indicative.

Kevin

 

[boyooso]

good luck figuring it out

 

[Flighty]

Yes, I'm starting to think it is a pseudocorynactis . Oh well, I'll still keep my eye on it and see what hapens with it.

 

[OrionN]

I don't think they are baby H. magnifica. They are likely corynactis. Corynactis are often close during the day and open up at night. This is often why we don't often see them.

 

[Flighty]

It is remaining open during the day and there is no calcium base to it as far as I can tell. The pics give ti the look of having a skeleton because of the mysis inside of it.

 

[bwest]

It's called an orange ball anemone (Pseudocorynactis spp.), but actually isn't an anemone at all. It's from the mushroom family.

Melev's id page shows one; it's the very last picture. id page

 

[BOKER420]

It's too bad it doesn't close at night. I have one of the Pseudocorynactis caribbeorum specimens. I got it from a firend of mine. His is close to 6-8 inches across when expanded at night. Its an amazing sight.

The one you have is really no more then a pest. They tend to get no larger then a quarter and split very often.