Another aiptasia question

[trey the salt]

I will try to put up some pics soon but let me describe first. I just got some new live rock from my LFS (I dug in the bottom and got some cool little decorative rocks) and today I noticed a bunch of tiny feather duster looking creatures on the new rocks. I have googled

aiptasia but can only find pictures of larger ones. They come out of white tubes and have a maroon dot at the end of each white appendage (or feather I am hoping) each of these appendages has a thin main stalk with tiny hairs lining both sides (like a bird feather would look like) can anyone tell me based on this description if I have feather dusters or aiptasia, and if it is aiptasia why is it so bad? I think they look kind of cool. One more thing, I have seen it spelled a couple of different ways on here so am I spelling aiptasia right?

 

[perfectdark]

Its tough to tell there are soooo many different hitchikers you can get that start out looking like somthing and turn into something else. But feather dusters and small tube cocoa worms are very common hitchikers. Also some smaller types anemones like rock and glass anemones can come on LR too.
Aiptasia is considered bad because of how easy it spreads.. it can become a pest and fast. It has a more aggressive nature IMO and typically it isnt a pleasant looking anemone. Brown'ish looking animal with tenticles.

 

[trey the salt]

hmmm, these are white and clearly are comming out of white hard looking tubes, I dunno what they are, I am hoping they are feather dusters because there are a bunch of them. What are tube cocoa worms?? are they bad?

 

[perfectdark]

Nope not bad but they are typically housed in a white hard tube and come out looking like a small feather duster. Typically red color but can be anything, harmless filter feeders.

 

[juice_1080]

I got the same thing on some a chunk of lr from my lfs and I talked to the guy next time I went in. He said its very similiar to a feather duster but its not going to get near as big.
Aiptasia does have a tube that it grows in. When aiptasia is small it looks just like the larger version of it, well at least it did in my tank. Man I hate that stuff, its so hard to spot the little ones too.
If you have what I got on my lr it doesn't seem like its anything to worry about, I have had it in my tank for about 2 months and it hasn't spread any that I have noticed or caused any problems. I would try to get some pics on here so you can compare but my camera sucks pretty bad.