are these good or bad?

[leaky]

I got new live rock... there is some hitchikers on it---

1- a few colonies , up to 15 in the same colonie, of these 1/4 inch tubes , brown in color, with fine hairs at the end, kind of look like some polyps. i touched them with a plastic spoon and -swoosh- the hairs and the insides of the tube(brown worm?) went down the tube so as I could not see them (into the base of the tubes in the rock). here is a pic(not mine) of what it looks like....

2- a very small (under 1/4 of an inch)transluscent or white lookin snail with no shell and 2 tentacles which can extend to 1/2 an inch which seem to be searching arround it like a blind man walkin down the street with a cane.

3- 2 small very (under 1/4 inch) red pebble lookin things stationary on the rock...

4- I think these are good... but- 3 small tubes in different locations with a worm type thing inside that hides then when comes out and has a round fan with a white and brown rounded circular pattern (baby feather dusters?)

now I flip the rock over and I see this-

1- black snail looking thind thing with two white enlongated marks on it.

2- different colored algae or slime-
a) seethrough white film
b) brite orange
c) bright yellow....
all of these on one side or the rock

3- a small cotton clump, kind of like a small end of a q-tip, coming right from the rock

4- round soft white translucent tubes streching across the rock

I will get pictures for all these as soon as i can....

should i just rid this rock????
Thanks

 

[kennerd]

Yes, you should remove it from your tank & ship it to me immediately!

All joking aside, it just sounds like you found some great live rock with a ton of life on it: did you purchase it from Gulf View in Florida? Sounds/looks like that's where it is from.

OK, here's my non-expert stab @ what you have:
Top of the rock:
1 faviidae family, common tube coral, reef safe
2 Nudibranch of some sort: usure
3 red pebbles: if they are a fuscia red, and some of them are slightly branching like a little tree, then they could be simple organisms whose name I cannot remember, but they are prerfectly fine. If they are clear bubbles, they may be a species of valonia, which is not good.
4 Baby feather dusters sounds exactly correct.
Bottom of the rock:
1 Might be a scutus, algae grazer, somtimes sponge eaters...
2 Encrusting sponges: these are great & are what eventually cement live rock together.
3 same as above (sponge)
4 might be either feather worms of vermetid tube snails, both perfectly fine filter/suspension feeders.

Pictures will help tremendously, but there should be some other folks that could help with specific ID once you get the pics.

Ken

 

[Wormy]

I concur with Ken except:

1) I think these are hydroids. I've got'em too. They might cause problems, but probably not. Watch it if they get near corals, as they do sting.

2) Probably a stomatella snail. It might be to small to see the shell. If it has little protusions on its back that make it look like its got feathers, then it's a nudibrach. Watch these if you have them, I found some that ate a perfectly good Porites cylindrica

.

Sounds like really good rock overall

. I wouldn't really worry about any of this stuff.

 

[leaky]

yes, I think they are hydroids myself. I don't know much about them but I read that they sting corals and can be a pest. like I said before, they are all over the rock, does this mean that I should not put any corals on this rock and will these hydroids end up on my other rocks?? how much of a problem can they be?? the rock is only just under 3 pounds so its not like its going to set me back, the tank is just been set up for 2 weeks so i will just buy another and make sure it has none of them .... hmm, am i over reacting?

 

[Wormy]

I'm not sure how bad hydroids are with coral. You can probably just scrub them off the rock with a toothbrush. They will show up all over though, as they have a mobile larval stage. My experience has been that they don't reproduce terribly fast, and prefer low light areas that I don't have corals in anyway.

 

[leaky]

Actually, get this, I got this live rock at big als(mississauga, ontario)... they just got a good shipment in... anyways the favidae pic was not them i think they are hydroids for sure... I am almost ready to throw it out... I just started a tank and I do not want it covered in these things... as it is only a 10 gallon....

 

[Wormy]

kennerd,

I've got some of that cluster rock from gulf-view. What Leaky has are soft bodied, long tentacled polyps (about 3 mm diameter max. oral disc if they're what I think they are). The cluster rock corals in the picture are solid bodied (tube shaped skeleton) with fairly short tentacles (they're really neat though, and fairly easy to keep, not to mention they ship well). I think they're actually Rhizangiidae family, not faviidae (I have to disagree with Dale here).

Anyhow, since it was brought up I have to plug Gulf View live rock

. This is the best live rock I've seen, and customer service is great. It's busting with life.

 

[leaky]

anyone have any idea what eats these hydroid worms?

 

[kennerd]

Not totally familiar with hydroids, but the fact that the description stated that they retreat into tubes led me down the favidae route...check out the pic on the Gulf View website, and you can see where I pulled the info from:
http://www.gulf-view.com/products/cluster.html


Hey, Leaky: where do you get this rock from? I'd think overnight mail order, based on your location, or do you just have a great LFS?

 

[Anonymous]

Mollies eat the free swimming stage, but it eventually kills the fish.

 

[hotrod26]

this is some pretty good info on removing unwanted pests from live rock even lets you sort out what you want to keep.
I have been searching for ways to get rid of pests on live rock because I am wanting to put some live rock in with dwarf seahorses and this info seems like some of the best I can find
http://seahorse.com/content/view/83/73/