Is this worms growing on my scolymia or part of its flesh?

Crown · Dec 30, 2023

I pulled what looked like a half inch strand of fleshy string that was connecting my scolymia to a nearby acan. Acantho seemed irritated by the string so I pulled it.

Never seen it before. When I pulled it off, these worm looking things were left behind. Is this a hitchhiker or part of my scolymia? As far as I can tell the worm looking things aren’t moving.

Do I need to do anything about this?

Crown · Dec 30, 2023

Seems like it’s Mesenterial filaments. Might be a reaction to being too close to the acanthophilia.

GlassMunky · Dec 30, 2023

Crown said:
Seems like it’s Mesenterial filaments. Might be a reaction to being too close to the acanthophilia.

yup that’s exactly what it is.
Those are literally the guts of the coral that they use to attack and dissolve neighboring corals

VintageReefer · Dec 30, 2023

Yes they are inside guts of the scoly, you experienced coral warfare - they were too close

The scoly attacked the acan with the filaments and was literally attempting to attack and digest the acan, viewing it as an invader to its space. It would win

Correct thing to do would be detach the filaments from the acan and move the acan somewhere else. If you ripped these out of the scoly, you likely mildly hurt it as these are a part of its inner body. Kind of like a combination of sweepers and intestines

Hopefully both heal up, keep them apart