Trachy Question

[kgravity]

So I have a trachy which looked like it was getting bleached so I shaded it and was just feeding it regularly. it stopped eating eventualy became almost completely white and the tissue began receding.

I have no idea what happened to it since there were 3 other open brains( 1 green welso and two pink and green trachys) next to it that are all doing fine and have been for quite some time.

As the hermits began to feast I decided it was time to throw in the towel and took it out. I noticed some hitchhikers on the bottom. One I had seen before and assumed it was a sponge or tunicate. But it is alot more firm than any sponge I have felt before almost like a bouncy ball.

The other is a small red blob (tough to see in the cell phone pic) and that one I have no idea what it is



Can anyone identify what these are, and if they could have been the cause of any problems.

 

[cloak]

They all look like different types of sponges IMO.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2011/6/inverts2

Those small pink protrusions are Foraminiferans btw.

 

[kgravity]

thanks and Yeah thats what I thought too and why I never bothered to worry about them i guess the mystery continues...

 

[rt67ghy]

I have a lobophyllia hemprichii which did the same thing. It used to eat almost every day for about 8 months and then suddenly stopped eating, lost colour and shrank. I thought it was on its way out. Then after 4 months I started feeding it very small amounts of food and it has been eating and recovering. So, I think yours may be going through the same process. I wouldn't give up on it; try smaller meals at long intervals and see which food it responds to. I'd also soak the food in vitamins/amino acids each time.

 

[kgravity]

Thanks and Thats almost exactly my scenario and treating regiment, though its only been about 3 months for the feedings and in recovery. I wish I had a quarantine tank that I could have moved him too, but since the hermits had started picking at him and some other corals were beginning to look bad I decided to take him out. I wish I could have given him more time, but 12 hours after taking him out all my other corals that were having issues perked back up.

 

[kgravity]

So as a update I bleached the trachy and some of the tube worms I noticed had dug into his skeleton with most of them it looked like he may have grown around the tube worm (looks like a little ditch dug into the tracky) but one near the base seams to go all the way into the base of the coral skeleton and possibly to the tissue. I have never heard of tube worms being a problem and I am not sure if this was, but I can post some pictures later if anyone is curious.