Aptasia or (hopefully) something else?

[nickandryan]

Hi everyone- My tank has been running since August 2020, and I've been pretty careful about what I let into it, but these appeared on my outflow hose about 5 days ago. They could be aptasia, but since I can't find any good pics of baby aptasia, I can't be sure. My plan is to take it out and scrub it clean, but would like to know what I'm dealing with first. No other aptasia in the tank that I know of, unless it's buried in another creature. I've done an inspection with everything closed up and couldn't find anything. There are about 50 of these on the hose, all at the same stage of development. These are less than a 1/4" long right now. I do have pulsing xenia in the tank that is growing like mad, I'm hoping that what these are, though they lack color. Any insight you can offer would be wonderful, my parameters are pretty good, although my alk bottomed out and I'm working to bring that up.

 

[SaltyT]

Those are pineapple sponges. They're harmless and a sign that your tank is doing well

 

[Dan1788]

Deffo pineapple sponges

 

[nickandryan]

Thank you guys so much!! I hoped they were something else. I will just let them grow. I appreciate you both taking the time to comment

 

[jprovido]

Hi everyone- My tank has been running since August 2020, and I've been pretty careful about what I let into it, but these appeared on my outflow hose about 5 days ago. They could be aptasia, but since I can't find any good pics of baby aptasia, I can't be sure. My plan is to take it out and scrub it clean, but would like to know what I'm dealing with first. No other aptasia in the tank that I know of, unless it's buried in another creature. I've done an inspection with everything closed up and couldn't find anything. There are about 50 of these on the hose, all at the same stage of development. These are less than a 1/4" long right now. I do have pulsing xenia in the tank that is growing like mad, I'm hoping that what these are, though they lack color. Any insight you can offer would be wonderful, my parameters are pretty good, although my alk bottomed out and I'm working to bring that up.

Pineapple sponge. Theyre harmless until they start invading your lps skeleton then they start annoying corals and will look disgusting