ZippysFunLand

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Hi,

I got a new coral a few months ago and it had these strange tentacles that would come out of it. The tentacles looked like a long silk thread (7 inches or so), and the silk thread has several smaller threads that branch out from it.

At first I thought it was coming from the coral, but still I thought maybe it had a couple of some strange worm on it. I moved it to my hospital to watch if for a while and after a few months, one of these things has moved over to another coral in the hospital.

Over the past few days, I have watched it move around on this new coral (which I think might be a favite, but im not actually sure). I can very clearly see that its a small (1.2 inch) greyish\pinkish (mostly grey) thing that looks a bit like a snail without a shell. Its clearly moving around on its own accord, though quite slowly. These long fishing strings seem to come out of its front and back side, and they move in and out very quickly, almost as if it were fly fishing where it casts its line and immediately pulls it back.

I have attached some pictures below. I wish they could be better, but the string is think like a single thread of silk, so its tough to capture. In the picture you can see that the worm or nudi it is wrapped around the meat of one of the corals. From what I can tell so far, they dont seem to hurt the corals by crawling on them. I'm not sure if its fishing line hurts the corals or not but i suspect that it might.

I've only been in the hobby for a few years now so I haven't seen it all but I definitely haven't seen these before. Anyone know what they are?

pic2.jpg


pic1.jpg
 

ZippysFunLand

Experienced Reefer
Location
Queens
Rating - 100%
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Hi, Thanks for the response. I'm not so sure of that. My main tank has plenty of those guys that live in tubes and they spew out a gooey saliva mixture once they sense food. This guy here is more like a slug with no protection and one single thread of a fishing line.

I do know where they came from. They came in on a pink Trachy that i bought from a guy on facebook. There were probably 3 of them on there, and i had originally thought they were part of the trachy, which seemed strange to me.

17311557_10154712246319232_1151500832_o.jpg


The Trachy has been puffing up lately, i think theres not enough nutrients in my hospital tank for him and he's healthy enough now that i should put him in my main display. I might try to remove the worms first though, just in case.
 

ZippysFunLand

Experienced Reefer
Location
Queens
Rating - 100%
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Hi, I ended up attempting to pick the hitchiker off of the (favites?) coral that he moved to and it really didnt peel off well at all. It was really just a little clearish white blob. I was able to confirm that the white fishing strands do come out of both the front and the back. Whatever it is, picking it off like this appeared to kill it.
 

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