skeleton question

[telamont]

I have an elegance coral. over the last year on the skeleton of it has grown sponges and feather dusters. Is this okay for the elegance coral? I must say my elegance has not looked its best and is continuing to frighten me. Also to say the elegance skeleton is obviously porous I have living in it many tiny bristle worms, pineapple sponges, and many others. I have a lot of these little crustaceans too if anyone can identify them ill leave a pick.

Also, I have a brain and part of its flesh is not draping over and fully inflated because of what looks like to me a sponge growing on its skeleton directly under that area. Its just a guess.

I've had this elegance coral over a year and was under the impression it was not sick like all other elegance corals we hear about dying in home aquariums.

any help is appreciated thanks.

 

[MechEng99]

In that picture you attached...is there a clam nearby by any chance? Those look an awful lot like Pyramidellid snails....

As far as stuff growing on dead skeleton, it's part of the reef building process. As corals age, they continue to grow a larger skeleton, and sometimes dead skeleton (skeleton not covered by tissue) remains. These will fill of all sorts of pods, worms, etc...typically with no issues.

Some sponges are invasive and can release toxins (which can kill a coral). If you think it's causing an issue, I would remove as much of it as I could and then keep an eye on it.

 

[telamont]

thanks a ton i may remove the sponges if it doesnt look any better within a couple weeks. no clams around ive purchased. maybe some small clam looking critters that came on my live rock...oh wow those are definitely pyramyllid snails wow. its funny because ive been losing turbos left and right all the sudden and my water is nice. i finally thought this morning those pyramils may have been hurting my turbos. how unfortunate kicking myself in the face right now.

 

[MechEng99]

Yeeeeah...I'd pull all your good snails out and try to knock off as many of those pyrams as possible. No bueno! (But good photo of them!!)