Baby berghia "wolf pack"

[zeroinverse]

Not great pictures, but gives you an idea of how they gather around aiptasia to eat it.

I will try to get pictures an tack them onto this thread.

 

[cbrennan4]

So cool!!! We need to get them under my scope for better pics

 

[zeroinverse]

Colin, totally want you to take microscope shots. Maybe I can get you a culture dish to take to your "lab". You can keep it there as they grow up.

 

[cbrennan4]

Sure! I can take pics everyday to show growth

 

[zeroinverse]

More pics from another culture dish.
Three different sized ones. I actually thought this culture dish was dead because of excessive nitrates from some aiptasia dieoff. Toxic sulfur smell, but I gues they survived.

 

[Grant W]

Hey Ron, have you released a pack into your tank yet? Its the best way to get them out of your Zoas without losses.

 

[lokii_37]

That is super cool. It could be cool to get a pic a day with the scope and then do a time lapse video

 

[zeroinverse]

@Grant, I previously did release 4~5 into my tank. I kept 2 pairs in separate tanks to lay eggs and harvest them for "culturing".

The problem though is since they are pretty mature adults, two of them died on me this past week. They were like 1-inch long.

So I am glad I have these "babies" that I can "raise".

Hopefully the adults in my sump have been breeding. I can't quite tell. There is less aiptasia around a few frags, so I think they are eating. Just not sure if their eggs are hatching and surviving or getting eaten by my microfauna.

 

[thysrof]

looking good Ron!

 

[Dragonvale]

Thats awesome! I'd like to see that on a larger scale! Meaning a wolfpack of adults VS one of those monsters at aquatic collection (yes the one that was about to eat the peppermint LOL).

 

[zeroinverse]

Thats awesome! I'd like to see that on a larger scale! Meaning a wolfpack of adults VS one of those monsters at aquatic collection (yes the one that was about to eat the peppermint LOL).

Get me one of those monster aiptasia and we'll shoot a video in 2~3 months. =P That should be really awesome.

 

[thysrof]

If there's one thing I've got it's monster aptasia.I will bring as much as I can to the meeting. I have some that is growing in the sand so they should be easy to get.

 

[zeroinverse]

U should have seen the BIG one at aquatic collections. It was two fingers thick and tall. Really!

It was going to eat a med-small size cleaner shrimp.

 

[cbrennan4]

I took a pic of it!

 

[Dragonvale]

I can't believe it was saved. It would have been a nice show LoL Ron why don't you feed one aiptaisa and see how big you can get it? I think that would be cool to see also

 

[zeroinverse]

Hahaha! I thought it was funny one of their sales guy was offering to sell it to me.

I don't want to bother setting up one just to grow a super aiptasia... Too tedious to keep track of.

 

[zeroinverse]

Wolf pack...
Apparently that pack of berghias finished off the 1st aiptasia and now moved on to another one.

Notice they are bigger with darker spikes from eating the 1st aiptasia.

 

[cjscott]

I don't think you should have a problem getting them to breed. I released 4 berghia into my tank last August and by October I was seeing 15 or 20 at times. Then I ran out of aptasia and I couldn't get anyone to bring me some

 

[zeroinverse]

@cjscott: yeah, I hope I don't run into that problem. ^_^
Plan is to help fellow reefers with any aiptasia problems they may have and learn some things along the process.
==============

On a related note, I put in another aiptasia and here are the berghias. I counted about 50 of them in the container. They're still pretty small, maybe 1~3mm long, so I don't feel they are ready to be released into an established tank with lots of predators.

 

[zeroinverse]

Well, I out in an aiptasia yesterday night and today it's pretty much gone. Guess I'll have to move these into a juveniles growout tank soon.