The Portuguese man o' war In Aquarium!!!

vitaly

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I've picked up a Portuguese Man of War from the beach and stuck it in my 30 gallon salt water tank for a closer look. These jellies wash up on Hollywood Beach all the time. So I figured, why not. I've kept two of them for 3 days and fed them some frozen mysid shrimp. They water got very funky after the second day. Porbably due to me only using a sponge filter. But I think it would be possible to keep them long term in aquriums. I would have tried longer, but I had to leave to go back to Europe. So I put them in the trash))

 

kno4te

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Interesting tank inhabitants.
 

krichardson

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Interesting indeed and as far as bizarre aquarium inhabitants go this minds me of the crown of thorns starfish I saw in a shop ahile back.
 
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Deadeye

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Cleaning the tank has got to be fun...
Very cool, just the other day I was actually thinking about if these were ever kept in aquariums. I would think sponge would have to be the way to go as far as filtration is, as anything else risks damaging them (like nems in power heads) due to their free floating nature.
 

Krismo962

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Here I was thinking what in the world is a Portuguese man o' war? and what the hell is it doing in an aquarium
 
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Deadeye

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It is an aggressive soldier from the country west of Spain.

It is a cnidarian species that looks like a jelly, but is actually a type of hydrozoan (making it closer to anemones and jellyfish). Rather than fix to the ground, it floats in the current. It has the most powerful sting out of all cnidarians (except maybe box jellies, I forget which is worse).
 
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Krismo962

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It is an aggressive soldier from the country west of Spain.

It is a cnidarian species that looks like a jelly, but is actually a type of hydrozoan (making it closer to anemones and jellyfish). Rather than fix to the ground, it floats in the current. It has the most powerful sting out of all cnidarians (except maybe box jellies, I forget which is worse).
Thanks,learned something new today :)
 

tlindsey

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Would have never tried that or put my fingers in the aquarium. A dead Portuguese Man Of War can sting.
 
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ichthyogeek

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You...put the live animals...in the trash...why.

I've thought about keeping man o' wars in tanks, but the fact that their tentacles get to 30-100 feet long is a problem. I imagine that you'd need to do something about them touching the bottom of the tank, especially as they're a pelagic species.
 
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