Yellow feather-like something on the glass

[Anonymous]

Sorry guys, my camera isn't good enough to get a pic of something that's growing on the all glass and overflow of my 72 (set up for a month now). Literally hundreds of these things have popped out.

It's a mustard yellow (common yellow polyp color) critter that many has arms radiating from a central point. The shape is like, of all things, a terrestrial fern plant. Each of the arms have branches radiating outward, spiky looking. The largest colony is less than 1/16 inch from side to side but all are measureably growing. It appears the larger colonies have some sort of stinging capacity as I watched a turbo snail heave it's foot up and change direction after it ran over a large patch. Conversely, the smallest patches are mowed down by the snails.

Tonight when I fed mysis to the tank the largest colony had a hold of a piece that was much larger than itself, which it released. Oh yeah, it also doesn't rub off easily. I tried to clean the inside glass with my trusty sponge-on-a-stick and they didn't budge.

It's not Aptasia thankfully, but I am stumped.

Thanks in advance!

 

[danmhippo]

A pic says a thousand words.

 

[Anonymous]

I know it would Dan but my crappy digi camera can't focus in close enough. Ah well, at the rate those things are growing I can take a pic of them waving "hello" soon

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

I'll take a stab at it. I'm probably wrong, but what the hell. It sounds to me like it could be a type of hydrozoa which is a stinging jellyfish that actually spends it's life as a polyp and is colonial in nature.

http://web.archive.org/web/200206060300 ... rozoa.html

http://web.archive.org/web/200208062306 ... orina.html

http://web.archive.org/web/200208150201 ... efault.asp

 

[Anonymous]

I'm familiar with the usual "clear-whitish" hydroids you find in the tanks, but these are a different shape.

Thanks for the links, I'll keep looking at pics maybe I'll find it.

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Law, look down twards the bottom of the page. Those yellowey/brown hydroids grow/spread extremely fast. Maybe that's what you have.
http://www.reefs.org/hhfaq/pages/main_p ... _rock1.htm

 

[Anonymous]

Hmm...they do look similar to that. Wonder if I should take the ol' scrubby pad and get them off the glass.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

Yeah, but there are other types of hydrozoans that are yellow, brown, etc. They pack quite a sting too. Are you thinking about those clear things that have legs? Shimek calls them dots with legs - hydroid jellyfish - they're common in newly established tank and show up out of nowhere and disappear eventually. Your type is a different sp. of hydoid I believe. Seems they've set up housekeeping and are here to stay.

Sally's link is they typical kind of hydroid that are pretty common and are colonial in nature as well. I've seen those mostly as tan to brown in color.

Wahtever they are, I'd suggest taking a razor and scraping them off and sucking them out with some airline tubing so they don't drift off and settle somewhere else.

 

[Anonymous]

That sounds like a plan. I'm familiar with the common form of hydroids (clear ones), they can be a plague in dwarf seahorse tanks and kill dwarf fry. While I have those too I'm not so worried about them.

I'll go home tonight and start scraping.

Thanks guys!