White feather duster in colony?

[ThomasDK]

Hi,

Can anyone help me with these are?, they seems to be white feather dusters of sorts, but resemble zoa/palys quite a lot. They grow within the colonys and have a sand attached to their tube.

 

[lespaul339]

If there is sand attached to the tube it's more than likely feather dusters.

 

[ThomasDK]

Thats my best guess aswell, they are on some of the colonies we got at work and look quite impressive as they imitate zoanthids extremely well and dont look like anything else i have seen before...

On one colony they are extremely dense and looks amazing.

 

[ThomasDK]

Tried with a new picture to show them more clearly, they are the white "polyps" in the red and blue frag

 

[cloak]

They just look like Protopalythoas to me. No worries.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/2/inverts

 

[ThomasDK]

Hi Cloak,

We discussed this also at work, but they retract way to fast to be protopalythoas. The reason i mention feather dusters is because of the tube like foundation and they retract into it and at lightning fast speed.

Not really worried about them at all, we have just never seen them before and their resemblance to palys and zoas are remarkable...

 

[cloak]

Try using something meaty like a piece of shrimp or some beef heart and place it on one of those polyps. (BB size piece or smaller) If it readily accepts it then it's most likely some sort of polyp outlined in that link above as opposed to a feather duster.