Pink-tipped hitchhikers

When I bring home barnacles for my snails, they often come with hitchhikers. Last July, a couple of baby pink-tipped anemones came along for the ride. I looked for them yesterday when I cleaned the tank, and found four; they're multiplying*.

One has settled on a broken snail shell. This leaves it subject to rolling, being walked on, being buried in the sand, but also increases its exposure to possible foods.

Anthopleura elegantissima. Still a baby; they grow up to 10 inches across.

This one's a bit larger. The base is green, the tentacles tipped with pink, with white markings. And this one has a pretty striped oral disc. With a spiky hermit crab foot on the side.

Two pink-tipped anemones and a hairy hermit, on an oyster shell. The one on the right has something in its mouth. In the next photo I took, a few minutes later, only a tip was showing. Anemones swallow slowly.

Processing that last photo, I noticed a tiny critter near the bottom, too small to be seen clearly.

Here it is, with a section of hermit antenna for size comparison.

I don't know what this is. It looks like a snail, but not like any snail that I've seen on the beach or in the tank. It is slightly larger than a copepod, maybe 2 or 3 mm. long. Another hitchhiker, or a tank newborn?

I'll search the tank, and see if I can find in again.

(Update: I took dozens of photos of the area, and found another three of these critters, none as clear as the one above. I think they're baby snails.)

*That makes 8** anemones in the tank. That I know about. 4 pink-tipped, 2 orange-striped greens, one plumose anemone, and one burrowing anemone. There may be more, hiding among the barnacles or the algae.

** 9. 3 orange-striped green anemones.

Side by side

Here's one of the new pink-tipped anemones, feeding and growing, standing tall.

Anthopleura elegantissima

And, right next to it, one of the Leafy Hornmouth snails:

Ceratostoma foliatum, with the Warty tunicate behind it.

I love the contrasting textures, the rough, craggy shell of the snail, and the creamy greens, pinks, reds, and yellows of the soft tissues.

Srevotfel, redux

A month's worth of aquarium pix; the odd shots taken while I was stalking something else.

One of the smaller hairy hermits, wearing a live barnacle on his shell. On Barnacle Mountain.

Young proliferating anemone. They live on their mother's column until they feel ready to leave home, then detach and float off to a new site. There are about half a dozen scattered around the tank, and another few still clinging to Mom.

Flatworm on the wall, carrying a small snail. Supper's cooking!

Making a snail taco.

A mouthful of snail meat. The shell has been dropped. A new outfit for a small hermit!

One of my tiniest hermits. These are sometimes orange, sometimes dark brown and white. I don't think they're hairies; they don't get much bigger than this.

Face shot of a small red shrimp

Snowy, again. Growing up, getting braver. His eyes are green now, his body a bit speckled.

Snowy molted. And I found his carapace before it crumbled.

I've been trying to determine his species; it's difficult, him being so small and so elusive. So I was glad to get an entire carapace, to see the shape and count the teeth. And I'm still not quite sure, but I think he's a baby red rock crab.

The carapace of adults is deep brick red in color and has 5 teeth that protrude anteriorly between the eyes.  Nine teeth that line the edge of the carapace lateral to each eye have a somewhat fluted appearance, like pie crust.  Carapace shape has been described as being fan shaped or shaped like the letter “D”.  The pinchers have black tips.  Juvenile red rock crabs are quite variable in carapace color and pattern, the patterns sometimes being quite exotic. (WSU BW)

5 teeth between the eyes: check.
9 teeth along the edge: probably; hard to see clearly.
Fan-shaped carapace: check. It's bumpy, too; the Dungeness crab has a smooth carapace.
Black-tipped pincers: looks like that's where he's going; there's a faint purplish tinge to the tips now.

Small bubble shell, wearing green algae.

Limpet, pooping.

Every batch of eelgrass comes home with a fair number of limpets, mostly quite small. They trundle about, cleaning the eelgrass, cleaning the walls, sometimes sleeping for a day or two. As long as they stay stuck to anything, they do well; if at any time they lose their grip and fall to the sand, they are eaten within minutes. The hermits hold them in one pincer, open side up, like a bowl of stew, picking out the meat with the other pincer.

With a sea star or two in the tank, things change; only on the eelgrass are they safe. Wherever the sea star can get a solid grip, he can rip the limpet away from his base. This large one (above) only lasted a few days.

It's a dog eat dog world out there.

About that family that Val ate ...

The eelgrass beds last week held a large population of proliferating anemones, riding high on the grass, feeding on the small animals in the diatom and hydroid fuzz.

Proliferating anemone, Epiactis prolifera, proliferating.

Like this one, most were adults carrying a column-full of babies and youngsters. Where they have been hiding up until now, I'm not sure; maybe half-buried in the sandy bottom, and now they have midgrated to the eelgrass to feed.

Another family, with one youngster already out on his own. The young stay on the mother's column for 3 months, then crawl away.

I transferred this blade of eelgrass to a bottle of water, and brought it home to the aquarium, where the family settled in happily.

The babies come in a range of sizes; they're not all birthed the same day.

Another view. The anemone in back has captured a chunk of hermit crab food.

Then their troubles began. The hermit crabs ripped the end of the eelgrass out of the clamshell I'd anchored it in, and it floated away. I moved it around to rest against the glass, and the mother anemone started to transfer to the wall. She would be safe there, but again, the hermits yanked the eelgrass away. I found her later, up against the back wall, busy moving onto a stone. That would have been perfect; only the crabs move stones around, and the three in the tank now are very small.

And then, before she was glued down, something moved her again and left her and her brood at the mercy of the current. Which was flowing towards the big burrowing anemone, Val, and her hungry tentacles.

Next thing I knew, Val's mouth was full. And the ends of the eelgrass were protruding. The only sign of the whole blue family was the hint of blue around Val's mouth.

Val's blue mouth. And a young hermit, trying to get at the crumbs from Val's dinner.

This morning, Val spit out the rest of the eelgrass blade, with a bit of slime, all that remains of the entire blue family.

Luckily, before the first move, two of the youngsters decided to leave home, and established themselves on the wall of the tank. They're still there, waving pale blue tentacles, eating and growing.

Young brooding anemone, not old enough to brood yet. 5 mm across the base.

Life must cycle

Sea anemones reproduce in a variety of ways: by cloning, (splitting or tearing off a part of the parent's body, which then continues to grow as an adult); asexually by budding: or sexually, producing free-swimming planulae, which find a spot and settle to grow into the adult stage.

Hydroid bud. Released medusas will eventually reproduce sexually. Unlike these, the anemones' buds grow directly into adults.

Clones can be quite large; up to half the parent's body, but the buds and larvae are microscopic. Even the infant anemones, already settled, may be only a couple of millimetres across the base.

Like the ones I found in the clamshell:

One of several patches, on this and a second clamshell. What species? Time will tell.

The orange-striped green anemones outside of their home territory, reproduce by splitting. "At home," they also release sperm and eggs. Whether they consider my tank a home away from home, I don't know.

Orange-striped green anemone. Their colours and shapes are variable, even in the same individual at times.

Are these orange-striped? Probably. See the two at bottom left. The stripes are green.

These little anemones are appearing in large numbers all around the tank. They are obviously not produced by splitting; no mature anemone has been racing all around, dropping bits of himself as he goes. It looks like these grew from babyhood.

Another of the same anemones, on rotting sea lettuce.

And then there's the little blue anemone, rescued from certain death on the beach last October:

Brooding or Proliferating anemone, Epiactis prolifera, about 1/4 inch across. On a third clamshell, with several orange-striped babies, kelp, and green algae.

This anemone has a unique sex life. Young adults are almost all functional females; as they mature they become simultaneous hermaphrodites (having both male and female gonads at the same time, as opposed to being first one sex, then developing into another) capable of fertilizing themselves and others. (From Oregon Coast Aquarium)

She's still young; adults can be up to 2 inches across, so for now, she's female only. Since there are no males, she won't be reproducing for a while yet.

(So the infant green anemones in the clamshells aren't hers; they must have come with the kelp holdfast.)

Once she reproduces, she'll brood her babies for up to three months.

... larvae? ... Live on mother's column (digesting yolk, then catching prey) until at least 3 months old and 4 mm diameter, then crawl off. (From wallawalla.edu.)

She knows her own:

When starved, Proliferating Anemones will ingest young anemones that have become detached from the parent’s base; however, these are normally regurgitated unharmed, even after several hours in the gut. (OCA)

I can't forget Val, the largest anemone in my tank.

Burrowing anemone, Anthopleura artemisia. 4 inches tall and still growing.

These anemones reproduce sexually, which won't happen here, since she's a loner. Or by splitting, which she shows no inclination to do. She's probably had enough of that; when I got her, she was just a blob of torn tissue left on a beach, probably by a bird.

Update on the blue anemone

A couple of days ago, Judy asked about the baby blue anemones; "Have any ... survived"?

One had. I wasn't too sure about a couple more.

That one is still hanging in there. It's only a few millimetres across, too young, really, to be out on its own. A persistent little critter, though; it was clinging to a few inches of torn eelgrass when I transferred it to the "hospital" tank, where the current is not as strong and there are no meddling hermits. The eelgrass has rotted away this week, until yesterday there were barely a couple of fraying threads left. Still the anemone hung on.

I fed it shrimp puree, and it stretched out stubby baby tentacles and grabbed some. It's awake and responsive. There's hope!

Tonight, I couldn't find it at first.  The eelgrass had finally disintegrated and sunk to the bottom, in pieces. I searched through the gunk and squirming amphipods until I found a shred of brown eelgrass tissue, with the blue speck of anemone sticking desperately to the end of one thread.

The rescue attempt: I found another length of eelgrass, a good, solid, fresh stem end. With a plastic wire (no metal in the tank) and working underwater, I tied the far end of that thread along the new eelgrass, so that the anemone lay next to it, almost touching.

I spent a few minutes, four or five, shutting down the tanks for the night. Before I turned off the anemone's light, I looked to see if my anchoring job had held. And the little Einstein had taken the opportunity; it was already in the middle of the new eelgrass blade! Brilliant!

Its survival is still iffy, but for now, tag me #happyhappy and #proudfostermamma.

No photos of the blue anemone; have a happy blue ladybug instead.

Smiling 25-spotter, in a Beach Grove garden

Pale blue fosterlings

The morning tides are extremely low this time of year, but we're slow getting started. Last Sunday, by the time we got to the beach, the water was halfway back, and coming in fast. We walked out to meet it, then had to hurry back, wading knee-deep, fighting the current that wanted to tip me in, camera and all.

When the water has a kilometre or more to flood or drain, it doesn't dawdle.

At the upper edge, we inspected the line of eelgrass knots being slammed onto the stones. Laurie spotted something blue, and caught it before the water swept it away again. It was a shapeless blue blob of jelly stuck on a few eelgrass blades, almost smeared along them, so that my first thought was "sponge". I brought it home to get a better look at it.

Washed gently and resting in a bowl of clean water, it opened out.

Mamma and the kids. One has started to move out on his own.

I recognized what it was by the cluster of youngsters of various sizes attached to the column; a brooding anemone, Epiactis. She (the mother) was quite small; the eelgrass is about 1/2 inch wide. She was wrapped around it, spread rather flat.

The mother's mouth, stretched out now that she's more comfortable. The young ones cluster around the bottom of the column.

Another view of the immature anemones. A couple were tiny, and almost colourless.

The eggs of this anemone are fertilized in the digestive cavity, and the larvae either swim or are expelled out of the mouth, and settle on the column. They stay there, digesting the yolk the mother has provided, until they are grown enough to feed on their own, then slide off to find their own place.

They may settle on rocks or shells, but are commonly found on eelgrass, like this family. The trouble with eelgrass is that it is often ripped up by the waves and tossed on beaches, where the anemones die.

They are rarely exposed to the air, not being able to tolerate exposure to the air and sun. (Race Rocks)

It was too late for this mother; she'd already been rolled on a stony beach in the sunshine, transferred to a bag (good; dark and wet), then to a bowl. I moved her quickly to the tank, making sure she stayed in the water even in transit. Maybe she'd be ok.

She wasn't. She died this morning, but by that time, many of the young ones had abandoned her. At last count, a dozen have established themselves, mostly on the eelgrass. They're tiny, maybe too tiny, and conditions in my tank may not quite match those of their usual home, but I'm hoping at least a few will survive.

Baby anemone, with one of my smallest orange hermits.

The colour leached out of the mother the first day, and the young ones, when they moved away, were a pale cream colour, but the blue is returning.

Another youngster, with a baby bubble shell snail.

These anemones eat small crustaceans, like shrimp, and small fish. I think they may like the amphipods that swim around the tank, but since they are so young, I'll start hand feeding bits of frozen shrimp directly into their mouths until they are established.

Wish us luck!

Blue mamma

We found these rolling in with the tide:

Mother and babies

I'm falling asleep as I type, so the story, and more photos, will have to wait. Goodnight!