Tube worm, feather duster or (please, no) APTASIA???

[lov'ncrabs]

I found this creature hitchhiking in hair algae on my tuxedo urchin. I've had aptasia before in a previous aquarium but haven't seen any in a decade. This doesn't resemble what I had before. I recall aptasia as upright, and appearing to be of a consistent material. This creature lies on it's side and appears as a tube with "feelers". Guys?

 

[lov'ncrabs]

In the third photo I had touched it with tweezers to see if it retracted - it did. The spines in the background of the photo are the tuxedo urchin hosting the hair algae it's hitchhiking on

 

[Reef Guy 04]

No worries. Just a feather duster.

 

[lov'ncrabs]

No worries. Just a feather duster.

Cool. Anything I should do? Anyplace in particular I should place it?

 

[Reef Guy 04]

It's up to you if you want to move it. It may eventually be overtaken by the algae and inadvertently be removed, so maybe drop it in a hole in a rock? It will extend its tube to find a "happy" place. By the pictures, it looks like there may be several of them in that clump of algae.

 

[Reef Guy 04]

If you have a refugium, you could just drop the algae clump in there. It looks chaetomorpha.

 

[Reefing102]

Agreeing with the above, looks like a small feather duster. In my experience, those never get much bigger than about what you see there. I’ve never transplanted the small ones like that but I would agree just find a small hole.

 

[BeanAnimal]

If it hates where you put it, it may eject itself and start over... they are delicate.. so let it find its own home.

 

[kharmaguru]

Since it's not attached to anything, the urchin will eventually just find it and pick it up again. I've given up trying to keep loose things off my urchins.

 

[BeanAnimal]

He may be happy as a nomadic worm on an urchin.