ID: anemone or LPS and snail

[dendro982]

Can you ID these and tell, if I should expect any troubles with them:

Mini snails, ~1/4" (5mm) size, several of them of the same size.

In this thread similar colored snails are described as Turbos, but mine are very small.

Is it anemone or relative of the sun coral:

this is from another tank, but could be the same:

Soft on touch, but I didn't press harder - to reach skeleton.

 

[philter4]

The anemone is actually an orange ball corallamorph, related to mushrooms, not anemones. There are several species, most as they mature get orange tips on their tentacles, but a few pacific ones stay white...I guell that would make them white ball corallamorphs. They almost never open during the day, mine is over 3 years old and still doesn't open when the lights are on, but now it wont close if I put the moon lights on while it is open.
Here is a photo of mine, collected in deep water off the coast here in FL. I took this photo at 3 am with my phone so sorry about the grainy quality.

 

[dendro982]

Thank you, it's very helpful.
I checked Google image search and so far it seems to me, that the closed one could be orange ball, and the open one, fuchsia colored - white ball corallimorph.

Are they non-photosynthetic (if they are nocturnal) and require feeding?If so, how do you feed yours? What is temperature and salinity, is preferred alkalinity low or high, anything that I have to add to my tank?

I also see on your photo Swiftia gorgonian. Is it also Caribbean (excerta) or Pacific (kofoidi).? Any tips or observations to share?

I have Swiftia kofoidi, pure orange, with usual care for any non-photosynthetic gorgonians. But it doesn't grow new branches or spawning with larvae settlement. And has time from time necrosis after pieces of chopped seafood (after feeding sun corals) were hanging on the branches all night long.

 

[philter4]

Mine are in my nano, I feed them lg chunks of frozen foods and ghost shrimp. They are pretty easy except for having to feed after the lights are off.

I collected the swiftia, it is excerta, and I also have diogorgonia, another common non photosynthetic octocoral native to s. FL. I feed mine several liquid micro invert foods as well as frozen rotifers and cyclops along with some dried foods like cyclopeeze. I figure if a fish diet should be varied so should my invert diet. They seem to do pretty good, I get polyp extention and growth in my tanks so I'm fairly certain they are not starving. My main problem is with algal growth, I use metal halides and the fish and shrimp are the animals I really want to keep so I feed too much. I do frequent water changes, but the algae grows like crazy so I have to manually keep it off the octocorals. They don't seem to mind as long as they can feed because they are actually growing and attaching to the rocks that I rubberbanded them to.

 

[dendro982]

Thank you!
Will be temperature 77-78F and salinity 1.025-26 be OK? I don't know conditions of the Caribbean Sea.

 

[philter4]

That is about right, I have never had any trouble with water conditions.

 

[dendro982]

OK. Thanks!

 

[pagojoe]

...And since nobody mentioned it, the little snails are of course Collonista snails, in the turban family, and are nice little algae eaters.

Cheers,



Don

 

[dendro982]

Thank you, Don! It's good to know, that it is harmless - I remember, how nice looking algae appeared to be bryopsis...