Knotted tentacles syndrome (aurelia aurita)

[Dr. T]

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Symptoms:
Feeding tentacles tangled and make lumps. Eventually lose ability to feed.

Cause:
When jellyfish suck on tank walls or trapped by water surface upside down too long, this symptom could occur. Keeping jellyfish in overcrowded tank could also cause this symptom.

Treatment/Solution:
The condition could be reversed by removing the causes above in the early stage of this symptom. Once jellyfish lost the ability to feed, it is impossible to recover. Try not to put too many jellies in a tank, and watch regularly for jellies sucking walls or floating upside down on the water surface.

[EmNm12]

Is this condition limited to the Aurelia Aurita?

[Cubic]

I guess this symptom would be limited to jellyfish with a similar body structure to Aurelia, jellies with short, fine tentacles.

I know similar things happen to long tentacle jellyfish such as sea nettles when more than one jellyfish catch the same piece of food and their tentacles get tangled together. This is a little different though.

[Dr. T]

Almost all jellyfish with long tentacles such as sea nettles and lions mine jellyfish tangles their tentacles in aquariums. This is simply because their tentacles are too long for the aquarium. When this happens, jellyfish can untangle themselves, or cut their tentacles off and grow new tentacles.

The symptom we are talking here is a little different. It is more like one of the processes of losing their tentacles, which often end up with balling up bells and loosing their feeding ability. I am not sure this happens jellyfish other than aurelia species.

[DerrickMazur]

I have 3 moon jellyfish in a cubic orbit 20, 1 is almost 2 inches the other two are a under that. I had the salt accidentally around 36 ppt for about a month of water changes every 4-5 days. The tentacles are tucked up and look very fragile even broken off. I've had it fixed for over two weeks and although they haven't shrinked in those 2 weeks, they tentacles aren't getting much better.. Will they ever recover? And what could I do? And is the salt being that high for that amount of time what could have caused it? I have it now at around 33ppt no higher.

[Cubic]

Hi Derrick

The average ocean salinity is actually 35ppt so a salt level of 36ppt shouldn't cause any issue for moons.

What are you feeding them? The feeding tentacles are generally at their longest when they are feeding or hungry.

[DerrickMazur]

I only feed them cubic jellyfish food, I was in a bad habit of leaving the food in there during work sucking it out then doing it again overnight.. So twice a day. I've been taking it out as soon as they get full now on and usually once a day sometimes twice . I feel like the food was the big deal issue. It's been 2 weeks and they aren't looking worse but they aren't looking like they are getting better quick, atleast the tentacles just yet.

[Cubic]

Leaving excess food on the bottom of the tank will have a negative effect on water quality which could cause the issues you are seeing with the knotted jellyfish tentacles.

What are the phosphate, ammonia, nitrate and pH levels in the tank?