You have a nice little Polycarpa aurata.
Ascidians don't usually eat phytoplankton (possibly except for very very small phytoplankton). They will need plenty of bacterioplankton and associated material and aggregates (bacterial coated detritus) that are supplied by established, healthy tanks. Even then it usually isn't enough. Good luck.
Well it's good that you got the rock they were attached to. I bought one of these when I first got into the hobby. Unfortunitly I didn't know much back then, so when the guy just ripped it off the rock and said it would be OK I believed him...only lasted about a week. I hope you have much better luck as they are a very nice yellow and purple.
Not sure what phytoplankton is available that small (if anyone else knows, let me know as well), but bacterioplankton is produced by healthy tanks in abundance. If you have a small specimen and a fairly large, very well established tank, then you may be OK.
Unfortunately bacterioplankton really has to be grown in situ and can't really be bought. The only effective way I can think of to get more is by dramatically increasing the water volume and surface area available for bacterial growth and having a lot of bioturbaters to stir them up into suspension a bit. Essentially, having a very, very large refugium is the only thing that has much of a chance of working very well. If these were a purchase it would probably be wise to return them.
I have them growing as hitchikers in my 65. One is red/yellow and has many openings like the one pictured here. The other type is huge and grey in color, and has one opening on each side. I do not feed them anything special, but this is a semi-aggressive tank so it's a bit "dirtier" than most tanks.
A refugium would certainly help. Having large sand beds that are disturbed (like chris said, by bioturbation) would probably help the most--additional ones in large refugia would certainly help as well. Some people also like to 'blast' the rocks off occasionally and that, too, would free up some bacterioplankton and associated aggregates.
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7639695#post7639695 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by calero i wanna share my new piece, a beautiful rock with 3 huge sea squirts ( tunicates )
Tunicates aren't LPS corals. They aren't corals at all. They are animals from the phylum chordata. They are considered the evolutionary ancestor to fish because of their larval stage.
buddy, i know that tunicates are not corals, im not that stupid, but this is the forum that i always use and i thought that it will be nice to share something beautiful, so i really appreciate your comments but i think they're out of place.
Actually they are considered the ancestor of us as well. Weird huh? I always thought we evolved from artichokes. Hah stoopid me. I have one that "appeared" in my tank about five-six months ago little brown ugly thing nothing as colorful as yours though!
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