Pix & ID: Critters that come in your rocks: the good and the bad.

[Xavibear]

Any idea on the red/black guy, or the odd thing in the upper left corner? Came off some zoa, mushroom, and gsp frags I picked up today.

Bristleworm. I don't know what the other thing is.

 

[crock921]

i kinda figured that, thanks. It just seems to be an odd color from the pics Ive seen.

 

[ReeferKimberly]

upper left is a pineapple sponge

 

[JJ84]

Hello everybody, new guy here
Can someone please help me identify what's this tube looking thing?? It seems to be eating my coral.. Thanks

 

[cloak]

Where exactly in the picture is this tube thing?

 

[JJ84]

Sorry it's kind of hard to see, this photo was taken at 2:30am, see if these help

 

[JJ84]

Here's another one

 

[Vilas]

Some kind of pink polyp?

Some kind of pink polyp?

Hi! Three days into the new tank, and this lovely thing has opened. It seems to be some kind of light pink polyp, about 3mm in dimension, and seems to be a hard coral of some kind, based on the bit of skeleton. Any ideas? Will it survive my cycle? And does it need more than t5 lights?

 

[ReeferKimberly]

Hi! Three days into the new tank, and this lovely thing has opened. It seems to be some kind of light pink polyp, about 3mm in dimension, and seems to be a hard coral of some kind, based on the bit of skeleton. Any ideas? Will it survive my cycle? And does it need more than t5 lights?

Looks like a goniopora or alveopora that is almost dead. They do not do very well in captivity and it likely will not survive. It is very hard to bring them back from the state it is in. They need nutrient rich water that is also clean, something difficult to achieve in an aquarium, much less a new aquarium. You can try to spot feed it with very tiny foods you can buy, but it probably won't make a difference at this point. Sorry :/

 

[Vilas]

Ahh. Drat. I was hoping that as it came on the live rock, so had withstood the curing, it would be fairly hardy. I'll try giving it a chance by spot feeding it. It is so beautiful! This will probably lengthen my cycle, I presume, to have that die off. Thanks for your advice!

 

[Xavibear]

It shouldn't lengthen your cycle.

 

[Vilas]

Still, I'll just go ahead and cycle for two months to be sure. I had a tank many moons ago, and saw how nasty dying coral can be.

 

[Vilas]

BUT, I get to say to my newbie reefer husband in a solemn tone of voice that the bad news is that we have goniopora, and watch his face. This, I am thrilled for.

 

[cloak]

Sorry it's kind of hard to see, this photo was taken at 2:30am, see if these help

From this picture, those little tubes sticking up from the rock just look like sponges of some sort. (harmless) I'm not sure if that's what I'm supposed to be looking at though.

 

[JJ84]

Ok look at the las polyp, there's a bump right next to it, almost red then turns white, that's the tube. It looks kind of like silk and sand all over it, also see the space between the polyps? That thing (whatever it is) ate all of that. I've been up almost all night to see if I can see the SOB but nothing, all I can see is the hole of an empty tube, but the next day another polyp is missing.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

All I see are harmless scypha sponges.

 

[cloak]

Some worms will use the sand grains to construct their tubes out of, but without a description of what's actually inside of it, it's going to be difficult to id. Maybe these links will help though. Keep your eyes peeled.

http://www.lionfishlair.com/hitchhiker/hitchhiker.shtml

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-05/rs/

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=632970

 

[2000se]

Is this Majanos?

Is this Majanos?

 

[Xavibear]

Looks like a bleached out riccordia.

 

[cloak]

It looks kind of like a ball-tipped anemone to me. (Pseudocorynactis)