Feather Duster hitchhiker?

[jhauris]

I have a feather duster in quarantine and I noticed these little white tentacles waving out of the tube. They have many branches, and they drastically change length from less than an inch to maybe 3 inches. I've tried to take a picture with my phone, but between not having a macro lens and needing to scale to meet site size requirements, I'm not sure how useful it is.

Can anyone identify what this might be? Are they a parasite, hitchhiker, or part of the feather duster itself? Are these a potential problem for the feather duster or any other animal?

Thanks!

 

[taillonjohn]

sorry man, the pic is pretty bad. Feather duster can retract the feathers if you get too close, not sure what you mean by little white tentacles, it should not look like tentacles.

I would suggest to take a better pic, and post it using tapatalk app on your phone, you post directly from your phone so you dont have to scale it, its so much easier than posting through the website

 

[Anemone]

Could be a type of hydroid - maybe a digitate hydroid or a comb feather hydroid. Generally not a problem to corals or other sessile invertebrates.

Kevin

 

[jhauris]

I apologize for the bad photo. I looked up pictures of digitate hydroids, and that is exactly what it is. Thank you for the ID help, now I can investigate those creatures and figure out what, if anything, to do about it. I'm so glad I quarantined.