I have no idea what kind of invertebrate I've caught.

claw_atticas

I went out today to the lagoon (Fort Pierce, FL) to get some sand, ghost shrimp, and water for my 5 gallon aquarium, and I caught a strange invertebrate, which at first I thought was a jellyfish.
It looks basically like a clear ball of gelatin, about a half inch long, with white spots all throughout the body. Out of the water, this is all I can see, but in the water I've noticed a smaller part of the body, about a 1/4" long that it looks to be using to swim.
Unfortunately, it's too weak a swimmer to swim against the intake of the filter, so I have it in it's own little section away from the intake.
I've caught a few of these other gelatinous balls around seagrass beds, mainly just the clear with white spots variety, and another that was clear with thin, bright yellow stripes through the body.
I would take a picture, but my camera's battery died, and I can't find the charger.

TheBoss

Youre going to need to buy some batteries and take a picture.

bettababy

Yep.... a picture is about the only way anyone here is going to be able to ID such a thing.

You might try searching for inverts that are native to the Florida coast in that area... but I warn you, there are a lot of them.

I'm wondering, when you set up the tank, did you also use water from the same environment these inverts came from?

Are you running a chiller on that tank? Keep in mind that in that area of Florida, the coastal water temps will average about 70 - 72 degrees. This is not considered "tropical", and if temps are in the average tropical range of 76 - 78, then your inverts will likely die.

Something else to keep in mind is food supply... taking an animal of that description directly from a wild habitat... how are you going to feed it if you don't know what it is? By the time you post a photo and we get a positive ID of it, chances are good that it could starve to death. Trying to replicate the food source for something invertebrate caught in a wild environment is going to be difficult, if not impossible. Many of those animals won't eat prepared foods, frozen foods, etc... and they won't find the same nutritional value in the food you offer, either.

If you are planning to "buy" fish from the lfs to stock this tank, please remember that anytime you put a wild and unquarantined animal (even an invert) into an aquarium, you risk brining in a number of diseases, illnesses, and level of pollution. To avoid the pollution, you'd have to catch the animals at least 5 - 10 miles out into open water to limit the risks of exposure. Things like oil and other garbage being dumped into our oceans will leave a residue that goes with the animal... and this residue can be highly toxic to any other animal that goes into the tank, and it can also be near impossible to get rid of once introduced.

Just a note for in the future, it is not a good idea to go to the coast and bring home live animals for an aquarium. It is also highly illegal in most places... unless you have a collection permit. One of the regulations for collectors is where they are allowed to go to collect, and this is usually many miles from shore in open water, and very specific places... there are also limits on how much of any given species can be taken, and some are not allowed at all.

claw_atticas

Here's a picture of the unknown creature, and after I've uploaded this image, I've put it back to the waters from whence it came. Fortunately it hasn't starved to death, and it seems to have been eating from the sand, maybe algae, or meiofauna was it's diet. But it was too hard to keep from getting pulled to the filter, and I'm sure it'd be difficult to take care of, but my question still stands: What is it?

cajunmomof4

No idea what it is, but it sure is an interesting little thing.

cajunmomof4

I think that MAY be comb jelly

http://www.ketchikanphotos.com/Inter...omb-Jelly.html

http://www.imagequest3d.com/catalogue/ctenophores/

DJOstrichHead

it looks like its attached to the wall in the first pic

maybe a tunicate?

http://www.coastal.ca.gov/publiced/p...-tunicates.jpg

http://www.lancashiremcs.org.uk/gall...sea-squirt.jpg[/list]