What Is This Attached To My Coral Rock?

[BigEZ77]

Hi All,

I just noticed a couple things on the rock for a Kenya Tree Coral and Devil's Hand coral that I received from the LFS last weekend. They might have been there before but I never looked close to enough to notice.

On the Kenya rock, there was something that looked like Aptasia (from the pest pictures I've looked up online) but it was more of a purple color. Anyway, I put on my gloves and teared it off the rock, it closed up quite a bit and when I was tearing it off, a bunch of white gooey stuff floated into the water. Does this sound familiar? No pics of this one unfortunately since I removed it before I had the idea of posting pics here, lol. Hope I didn't do anything really bad by trying to tear it off in the tank.

On the Toadstool, I've found what appears to be a bunch of micro brittle stars and the item circled in the pics attached. Does anyone know what it might be, if I should remove them, and how?

Thanks,

Russell

[OrQidz]

The circled things look like green star polyps or anthelia, something along that line. Nice easy softy, but does spread. Those striped arms are brittle stars, good guys. I personally wouldn't remove either but I like green star polyps.

I'm not sure what the thing was that you pulled off. I'm doubting aiptasia just because they will vanish into a hole in the rook and I'm not sure you could pull them off. Generally, there isn't much you can remove by pulling it off. Small bits will stay behind and regenerate and you are back where you started. I would watch for something to regrow, and then post again when you have a picture.

[pyithar]

the circled thing looks like xenia to me.

[hotelbravo]

imo i see daisy polyps

[BigEZ77]

Thanks. If its any of those, can I just pull them off if I don't want them?

[scooter31707]

looks like daisy polyps.

[mmittlesteadt]

They look like Xenia to me as well. Do the polyps "pulse" (open and close over and over)? If so, it is Xenia, which is a really cool softie, easy to keep and actually takes up nitrate. I'd leave it if it were me. In fact, I'm looking for more xenia.

[BigEZ77]

Originally Posted by mmittlesteadt

They look like Xenia to me as well. Do the polyps "pulse" (open and close over and over)? If so, it is Xenia, which is a really cool softie, easy to keep and actually takes up nitrate. I'd leave it if it were me. In fact, I'm looking for more xenia.

No pumping. I need to invest in a macro lens to post better pics in the future.

[BigEZ77]

So these daisy polyps are really growing...get one more polyp a day! Are you sure I shouldn't remove these somehow? Will they overrun my tank eventually? If I should remove them, what is the best way to do so? Thanks in advance.

[thegrun]

Originally Posted by BigEZ77

So these daisy polyps are really growing...get one more polyp a day! Are you sure I shouldn't remove these somehow? Will they overrun my tank eventually? If I should remove them, what is the best way to do so? Thanks in advance.

Assuming they are daisy polyps (or green star polyps), yes they will continue to spread and cover almost everything in their path. You could either remove them of place the rock in the sand away from any other rocks and let them grow on their "island", trimming off any runners that try to spread onto neighboring rocks. If you elect to remove them you could either scrape them off the rock (in a separate bucket so no little pieces can blow around and attach themselves to another rock) or cover them with a thick kalk paste (pickling lime).

[BigEZ77]

Got it, thanks.

[juniorrocketdad]

They look like some kind of star polyps unlikely that ts Xenia but not all types pulse so that is not a way to tell what it is

[solidcore]

let it grow