Aiptasia pulchella
Diagnosis
The Glass Anemone can get up to about 6 cm tall.
A. pulchella are somewhat translucent and generally occur in a pale-to-rich brownish color with lighter tentacle tips. The color comes from an algae called zooxanthellae living in its tissues. Their body form is the polyp. It is composed of a long, thin column with an oral disc on top that has a mouth in the center. There are elongated tapering tentacles positioned in narrow rings on the outer margin of the oral disc. The oral disc supporting these tentacles is about 1 inch (2.5 cm) wide. If it feels threatened, quick as a whip, the Glass Anemone will rapidly retract its tentacles becoming a very small ball, and it will retract into its hole or crevice.
The Glass Anemone has a pedal disc or 'foot' with which it attaches to the substrate. If tank conditions are not ideal they will use their “foot” to move along the substrate. They do this by contracting the circular muscles of the foot and pushing forward, or they may crawl on their side, moving about 4 cm per hour. Aiptasia pulchella will often opt to simply disconnect and float around, or swim by moving in a spiral motion, until they find a new spot to adhere too.
Life cycle
It is unknown how long Aiptasia anemones can live, but they do reproduce quickly. Mature specimens can produce dozens of juveniles in a single day if they have plenty of nutrients.