Seahorse & Aiptasia

So I've got a standard reef tank, LR/LS & skimmer. Partitioned off a section
and put some seahorses in there. Everything seems fine.

But of course, like most reef tanks, I've got constant low-level trouble with
bubble algae (valonia), aiptasia anemones, etc.

Feeding my seahorses last night, I just noticed that a tiny baby aiptasia
anemone had attached itself -- to the _belly_ of one my my seahorses! The
seahorse was swimming around, and these tentacles were drifting behind him,
coming out of his stomach. Bizarre.

Anyone have experience with this? Might the seahorse get hurt, or is it
armored enough to withstand the aiptasia stings? How can I remove it? I
guess I could try to catch the seahorse, hold it down, and then inject the
aiptasia with something like Joe's Juice. But that sounds like a lot of
stress for the poor seahorse, and I'd hate for it to breathe/swallow
concentrated Joe's Juice as I try to kill the aiptasia. I have a reasonable
fear that the cures might be worse than the disease.

Advice? Suggestions?

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
We are soulless bags of walking meat and water, doomed to toil in misery.

"Don Geddis" wrote in message
...
So I've got a standard reef tank, LR/LS & skimmer. Partitioned off a
section
and put some seahorses in there. Everything seems fine.

But of course, like most reef tanks, I've got constant low-level trouble
with
bubble algae (valonia), aiptasia anemones, etc.

Feeding my seahorses last night, I just noticed that a tiny baby aiptasia
anemone had attached itself -- to the _belly_ of one my my seahorses! The
seahorse was swimming around, and these tentacles were drifting behind
him,
coming out of his stomach. Bizarre.

Anyone have experience with this? Might the seahorse get hurt, or is it
armored enough to withstand the aiptasia stings? How can I remove it? I
guess I could try to catch the seahorse, hold it down, and then inject the
aiptasia with something like Joe's Juice. But that sounds like a lot of
stress for the poor seahorse, and I'd hate for it to breathe/swallow
concentrated Joe's Juice as I try to kill the aiptasia. I have a
reasonable
fear that the cures might be worse than the disease.

Advice? Suggestions?

-- Don
This picture would be worth a million words.

X

Aiptasia can be very harmful to seahorses. There are ways to sedate the
seahorse with clove oil, but this is tricky as too much can kill the
horse. Go to seahorse.org, and post questions there. Is it a male or
female seahorse? Can you get a picture to post on seahorse. org? I a a
regular there, and they have a wealth of knowledge, from treating
illnesses to tube feeding your seahorse to raising babies. Aiptasia
definately eat fry. I would probably recommend using the Joe's Juice
despite the stress of having to catch it.
Good luck,
Elizabeth

(Elizabeth Davis) wrote on Thu, 1 Jun 2006 :
Aiptasia can be very harmful to seahorses.

Yeah, I'm a little worried about that, but there's no (foolproof) way to
completely remove it in a reef tank.

Aiptasia definately eat fry.

Right, but I'm not raising babies, so I wasn't concerned about this.

I would probably recommend using the Joe's
Juice despite the stress of having to catch it.

Turns out that, by the next morning, the aiptasia was gone. Perhaps the
seahorse scraped it off against a rock or something. More likely, the
aiptasia itself made a mistake, and decided it wasn't on a very good base.
I think they detach and reattach on a fairly regular basis (if not happy in
their location), so it was probably a natural thing.

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that, I'll be over here, looking
through your stuff. -- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey [1999]

Good deal!!!
Glad that worked out that easy!!!
Elizabeth