Christmas tree worms and other inhabitants (pict. intensive)

[Twisted]

The brain with the worms is just too cool. I would buy that in a heart beat if I saw it in a LFS.

The only other thing I have seent the worms grow in, is a LFS has a few collectors edition corals, and one of the $80 bucks an inch montiporas mother colonies has a xmas tree worm right in the middle of it.

 

[LeslieH]

A quick check of a few articles showed Spirobranchus species have been found on Diploria strigosa, Montastrea annularis, Acropora prolifera, Porites lobata, Porites rus, Millepora complanata, Porites lutea, P. lobata, P. lichen, Porites astreoides, Montipora informis, Montastrea annularis, Madracis spp., Porites porites, Diploria labyrinthiformes, Montastrea cavernosa, Siderastrea siderea, Palauastraea ramosa, Acropora clathrata, and Agaricia spp.

One species, Spirobranchus polystrema is abundant on several types of hard substrates including corals, calcareous algae, stone, and even on hermit crab shells.

Porites is apparently the least favorite coral for settlement.

 

[dendro982]

I was told, that porites will grow in encrusting manner, covering (eventually) the neighborly LR (should be boulder type, the worms are big and need space).

Google search on Christmas tree worms shows Spirobranchus, growing on the maze brain, just like on picture above.
I was able to lay my hands on the damaged maze brain (free), it's has 2 holes for the worms, but I'm suspecting, that it's for vermetids - long and narrow:

The last photo - bleached and dead place of contact of the maze brain and porites behind (few days). Beware.

New inhabitants of the life forms-rich X-mas tree rock: crab and crustacean (this with barnacles around, has spasmatic movements, barnacles - ducking):


Youngest Spirobranchus - has no spiral crowns yet:


Last, but not least - hitchhiker Spirobranchus under the big hairy mushroom. Was never in the same tank with Christmas tree rocks.


Mine rocks cost (USD~1.3 CND): $40 (small), 80 (brown), 75 (beige). Never seen rocks with more worms in LFS (otherwise they will be in my tanks ).

Why porites are living in my tanks (my assumption): they are not sterile clean tanks, fish is fed at least twice daily, additional fine food (any available) - for the filter feeders, a lot of detritus at the bare bottom (visible layer). Alkalinity drops fast to 7dKH, have to maintain. Other tanks hold alkalinity well.
Who knows...

 

[yardboy]

I almost forgot that I'd had a worm in my brain (couldn't resist saying that) A Christmas Favia I believe it's called, but not a "Christmas tree worm". The worm died I guess after about a year and no more have appeared.

 

[LeslieH]

I've never heard of Christmas Favia. The worm in your pic is a Megalomma species in the family Sabellidae.

 

[LeslieH]

I've never heard of Christmas Favia. The worm in your pic is a Megalomma species in the family Sabellidae. There was no recruitment because the species is dioecious (needing both males & females) and does not have asexual reproduction.

 

[Twisted]

The christmas favia is a color variant, not named for the worms. I think it is the oppisite of the coloration war coral favia.

 

[Twisted]

oh, here is a cleaner shot of my little hermit crab dude!

 

[LeslieH]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9581778#post9581778 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Twisted
The christmas favia is a color variant, not named for the worms. I think it is the oppisite of the coloration war coral favia.

Oh right, Favia's a coral. To me corals are just something for the really interesting inverts (like worms & crabs) to feed on!

 

[Twisted]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9582199#post9582199 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by LeslieH
Oh right, Favia's a coral. To me corals are just something for the really interesting inverts (like worms & crabs) to feed on!

LOL, I am really curious as to what you have seen in your experience in the field you are in LeslieH. Are there any really cool inverts you have seen out there that you don't see in the every day aquarium, that isn't a threat to fish and corals atleast?

I think my favorites so far are my randalls pistol shrimp, and my boxer crab, both of which I have rarely seen since I bought, kinda sad.

Is there a really colorful invert that I should be looking for that is reef safe, and is bold enough to be out in the open?

 

[yardboy]

I thought I was being clever, putting a "Tiger" pistol shrimp/Randall's Goby pair in a 10 gallon tank so I could see them. My god, they are busy little bee's, and disrupt a tank unlike almost anything else.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1082065

Yea, Leslie, throw some ideas out there for strange things you've seen that WON'T eat corals, and would be cool to watch! I really admire the depths of your knowledge. I'm so glad I picked up that strange hydroid at the jetties this past weekend! He seems to be doing fine, by the way.
I'll tell you what Twisted. I'll go tomorrow (I'm off on vacation this week) to the jetties and look under every rock I can move for something weird we can ask Leslie about. If it's really cool, I'll send it to you!

 

[dendro982]

Found an interesting website - photos of Philippine marine inhabitants, particularly 8 pages of the different feather dusters, photo and ID, including living on the different Christmas tree rock-like corals: PoppeImage.
Do you know something like that for other regions of the world, from where our Xmas rocks could came?

 

[LeslieH]

:lol: :lol: Guys, I am totally the wrong person to ask about inverts for tanks. My idea of providing a good habitat for an invert is making sure there's enough alcohol in the jar it's preserved in. When I see them they're either already dead or destined to die at my hands. Even corals will run away when I come near a reef. :lolspin:

The Poppe site has some excellent images. It's a pity some of the ids are poor with the exception of molluscs which are excellent - molluscs are the Poppe's speciality. Some of the poly ids are reasonable but many are not, having incorrect species, genus, family, & even phylum names. Same goes for other groups as well. That's the problem with most web photo guides. The people who do the ids don't have any experience with the animals and are working from other photo guides.

Your CTW rocks came from either the eastern tropical Pacific (Fiji, Philippines, Tonga, Samoa, etc) or the western tropical Atlantic (off Florida, Caribbean). My museum's Guana island website is good for the Caribbean; I wish our web page designer had included more than just a fraction of the inverts we had photographed but he ran out of time. One advantage to our site is that we have examples of the small stuff like pods that most sites ignore. http://www.nhm.org/guana/bvi-invt/home.htm For the Pacific I especially like www.edge-of-reef.com (Indonesia) and http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/reefs/ (Micronesia) as they were done by marine biologists who collected specimens for id as well as photographed them. Dave Harasti's site (another professional marine biologist) is also very good http://www.daveharasti.com/ Both Dave & the Edge of Reef people include some info about each species.

There are some very good book photo guides. For the Caribbean the best is "Reef Creature Identication " by Paul Humann & Ned DeLoach. They also have separate guides for fish & corals. For the tropical Pacific there are many. Two I use a lot are "Tropical Pacific Invertebrates" by Patrick Colin & Charles Arenson, and "Coral Reef Animals of the Indo-Pacific" by Terrance Gosliner, David Behrens, & Gary Williams. I also extensively use books by Neville Coleman, Helmut Debelius, and a japanese invert series. Just remember that all these books do have occasional mistakes. Either the id was made from a photo without examination of the specimen by a specialist or the name has changed since the book was published.

Have fun. Yardboy, I look forward to seeing what you can dig up. Happy hunting!

 

[yardboy]

Well, you may be the wrong person in your opinion, but you sure threw some nice links out there.
Thanks so much!
:thumbsup:
Man, I forgot my camera today. There were some great ctenophores out there. One I saw had a blue transparent body with red "guts" (or maybe he'd just eaten something red!)

 

[LeslieH]

 

[dendro982]

:lolspin:

My idea of providing a good habitat for an invert is making sure there's enough alcohol in the jar it's preserved in. When I see them they're either already dead or destined to die at my hands. Even corals will run away when I come near a reef.

:wavehand:
Thank you for the links, pity, that there are not much info on the feather dusters and Christmas tree worms. Will try to find the books later - always like to find out more on the topic.

Please, anybody, if you find anything useful for ID or their keeping, post here, OK?

 

[smaier6]

Porite Xmas Tree Worm Rock - Is it Dieing?
Hello All,
I would like to know if my Porite Xmas Tree Worm Rock is dieing? I just recently looked back at the first photos that I took of the rock porites which were a golend brown. I had around 15 worms growing on the rock when I first received it about 3 months ago.

Tonight I noticed that porite rock is loosing its color from golden brown to almost a yellow to white color on it. I have additional worms that are growing on the porite rock from 15 to 20. Therefore, I am concerned that it may be not doing well because of the way the color looks on the porites. I have been doing small water changes twice a week about 6-9 gallons at a time with ocean water. Lighting 7 hours a day 2x150 MH and run 2x 10K PC for 1 hour. My nitrates are about 30 ppm, nitrites and ammonia 0, calcium 400ppm, PO .03, salinity 1.020, PH 8.3

I have also attached pictures before and now of the porite rock.

Any Help or advice will be appreciated!

 

[dendro982]

Hi, Steve! Can you check pictures, can't see them on my PC.

If you have Christmas tree worms growing in numbers - it's really good. On my rocks only feather dusters are multiplying, and may be a couple of spiral crowned worms.

What is the reason for keeping the salinity so low - 1.020? Just curious, mine are at 1.026 - thought, that better be on the safe side. Nitrates and phosphates I have quite low, "thanks" to bryopsis, growing everywhere. But I had the rock with brown porites in a tank with NO3 ~80 ppm and PO4 ~0.5 ppm for some time, no bleaching.

What is temperature in your tank?

I had seen twice the lightening of the porites (at least I think so): the brown rock with larger crowns bleached in the tank crash, when 3 potentially toxic animals died in turn. Removed to another vessel, and it restored color in a few months (and my conditions are worse - medium PC light plus sunlight, artificial salt mix in tap water ). Another, beige Christmas tree rock with a small worms and fine texture, lightened to a healthy light yellowish-beige, with clearly defined edges, looks like re-growing the recessed tissue, after increased feeding for may be a month.

 

[tikireefer]

Just wondering what kind of survival rates you have had with your Christmas tree worms? How many years have you had them? Are you adding anything special to your systems to give them the nutrients that they might need? Do you dose phytoplankton? Do you guys run refugiums? Just wondering what you have learned so far in the process of keep this delicate creatures.

 

[Twisted]

Wow, kinda cool that you revived this thread. I forgot all about it.

The one that is in my avatar I bought at atlantis aquariums right after the Bay Area Reefers frag swap in February of 2007.

I still have this rock, and it still has probablly half a dozen worms alive in it, perhaps a couple more then that.

But all of the porites died off. Whats funny, is I added some of the tiny little blue snowflake cloves to my tank, and they spread all over, will they just about covered this rock, and now the porites are starting to come back and fight the blue snowflake cloves off of it.
So does this mean that the porites need to be aggressive or what?

I will go get a picture to try and post.