Upside Down Jellies

[AndyL]

Noticed at a local shop - they had a bunch of hitch hiker upside down jellyfish. Gorgeous red color, I almost bought a bunch on the spot; but decided to research things further...

Google doesn't reveal much of relevance; anyone have any practical experience keeping these?

Thanks in advance,

Andy

[Whatigot]

talk to seahorse fanatic.
he has some before.

If I remember, they were very hard to keep and require a specially designed cylyndrical tank to house them.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Any jellyfish will need to be in a species tank. The Upside-down or Casseiopia jellies are probably the easiest to keep. They are light-requiring/photosynthetic jellies. I had one for about 6 months in its own tank but my wife kept feeling sorry for it so it went into the frag tank & got blown around into the rocks & damaged or sucked into the powerhead & damaged.

The are very hard to keep because of their delicate bodies (mostly water). They are prone to getting sucked into powerheads, so you'll have to put a sponge over your intake.

I bought two recently thinking they were Cass. jellies but turned out they weren't & any other type needs a specially designed cylindrical tank with no LR or powerheads, but with some flow to keep them suspended. These ones lasted a few weeks but eventually wasted away or got damaged from getting stuck on even the tiny salt-mixing powerheads I used.

Anthony

[BlueAbyss]

This might help you out a bit, I found this article a while ago. http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/7/aafeature2

[justinl]

make sure they are casseiopeia. After that it's really quite simple (as far as jellies go) to keep them. The nice thing is that they do not need the very expensive semi circle or circular kreisel tanks because they stay on the floor. only pelagic jellies really need kreisels. a standard tank will do fine.

Then think about their natural habitat: lagoon, various salinities (but constant). Which means put them in whatever salinity you buy them in. They can be anything from brackish to full salt. not sure about hypersaline. VERY low flow. any intakes must be sponge covered or something to keep from sucking up the jelly. high light (halides) since they are mainly photosynthetic. Should accept a range of fleshy marine foods as well.

edit: fine sand bed is important too. something like crushed coral is way too abrasive for something that is nothing more than a sac of water in a thin membrane.

[ElGuappo]

i just got back from vegas and saw the reef at madalay bay trying to upload pics now. Bad pics the glass was thick and cylindrical. Plus i could not believe how poorly lite the whole thing was. not a single piece of live coral i dont think.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3008/2984696885_7d42635f7b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3004/2984698533_6f42154779.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3187/2985557198_f726797481.jpg

[OCDP]

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but how come Jellies need a cylindrical tank?? Just curious..

[justinl]

el guappo, looks like those are Chrysoara... sea nettle. Could be pacific or japanese, I can't tell without colour. either way, those are planktivores. no light needed. still, for viewing purposes, you'd think they'd light it better than that. :neutral:

OCDP, most jellies need kreisels (full circle/oval) or pseudo kreisels (semi-circle) because they need to stay in the water column. To do this, they are somewhat buoyant and photoactic (swim to the light) but rely more on water current to keep them up than anything else. In a standard tank, they will inevitbly hit the bottom agian and again and wear themselves to death basically. btw the circle/semi circle of a kreisel is not a vertical cylinder (like a can), it is an upright circle (like a wheel). the theory behind the kreisel is that the circular flow keeps the jellies in the middle of the circle and the higher velocity water around the sides keeps the jellies off the glass. not a dumb question, many don't even know what a kreisel tank is, let alone what it's for.

casseiopeia don't need kreisels because they are not pelagic jellies. kreisels might actually be bad for these guys if the kreisel isn't big enough; they need to be able to sit on the sand without being piled on one another.