Jelly fish? Please ID..

[kasper4lyf]

Last night I noticed that one of my pepermint shrimp had babies. When I looked below in the refugium to see if any had made it down there alive I was surprised to see hundreds of VERY thin tentacles waving through the water. After a closer inspection I noticed they were grabbing the small shrimp and pulling them towards small masses attached to the Calerpa. There is also some smnall ones attached to my skimmer pump.

 

[LeslieH1]

It's hard to tell from from the image but judging by the flat body with 2 peaks and 2 pinnate feeding tentacles it's a benthic ctenophore rather than a jellyfish. These are in a separate phylum. Jellyfish are cnidarians like corals and anemones while ctenophores are, well, they're ctenophores. You'll find more information & images by googling benthic ctenophore, platyctene or Coeloplana; also there are a couple of long post threads about them at www.wetpixel.com

 

[wade1]

Could also be a series of worms... they are common in reef tanks.

 

[LeslieH1]

Worms I would recognize :lol: This is a benthic ctenophore. There are some better images here: http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?sh ... ctenophore