The taxanomy of the animal kingdom is vast and complicated, which makes trying to identify something that suddenly appears in your aquarium very difficult to pinpoint.
With new born organisms this is particularly true, because during an organism's life cycle it can go through many different shapes and color changes, morphing into something that looks totally different from that which it started out as. Another problem is that an organism may be so small, you can't even begin to guess what it might be.
Here is what you can do to help identify strange things that show up in your aquarium.
- Buy some good invertebrate identification books for your saltwater reference library.
- Refer to marine invertebrate database and profile information, as well as photo galleries.
- If you have a personal saltwater Web site, create something like a "Can You Help Identify This?" page. You can display photos here and allow visitors to email back to you about them.
- Post a message in the About Saltwater Aquariums Community Forum asking for help with identification. If possible include a photo of good clarity, or provide a link to a Web page you may have created as described above.
- Photo Emailing Tip: When you email a photo to another aquarist asking for help with identification on something, be kind. Only send an image that is reasonably sized, and is clear enough to tell what you want identified including a "brief" description.
If you cannot identify what you have, you basically have two choices of what to do:
- Leave it alone and see what happens.
- Remove it, if you are deeply worried whether or not it may harm your aquarium.
