Tubular growth with bright green heads that retract

[Lionfish Lair]

Are we looking at this...

 

[MonsterReef]

Yes please

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Like the others, I can't really ID it because I can't see it... but my gut is telling me hydroids. I know you said you looked at some pictures and it's not matching up, but I really feel it's because you haven't seen the right pictures yet. Of course I could be absolutely, totally wrong, but for some reason that's what I see when I first look at it.

 

[MonsterReef]

It has a red exoskeleton tube like the pipe organ coral someone just posted.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Certain species of hydroids have those. I was looking for a picture, but I think the one I want is on a broken hard drive. I had ones just like you are describing and they had the green centers. I really can't tell you why that's what I'm seeing in your picture, but I have to roll with my gut and guess hydroids.

 

[MonsterReef]

And if they are hydroids do I leave them remove them? I mega dipped that coral before I put it in and they just recently showed up 3 months later

 

[Lionfish Lair]

They just now recovered from the dip, IMO. Those tubes are little protective holsters called the thecal sac. Hydroids without this structure (athecate hydroids) wouldn't have done so well in the dip. I never did anything about mine. The athecate colonies with the unprotected polyps seems to easily spread individually all over the place. The tubed hydroids, tend to grow out from that little colony and never sprouted up here and there all over the place. If you grab one of those stalks and pull, you'll probably find they aren't easy to remove, but they are easy to mow with scissors, if you ever want to go that route.

Remember, I can't see them enough to ID them properly, so take what I say with a grain or two of salt.

 

[MonsterReef]

I will look into it. That part of the rock was completely bare when we got it and then we had a little hair algae then these popped up in the middle.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

The rock is removable then?

 

[MonsterReef]

Yes but our clove polyps and Kenya tree are attached

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Oh... gotcha.... so, no chance of a better picture then? I'll keep looking around for pictures of what I'm referring to.

 

[MonsterReef]

I may be taking it out to dip it again as I saw another bristle worm and its a pipefish soon to be seahorse tank and I didn't want to chance them getting bristles in their tiny mouths...

 

[Lionfish Lair]

It'll help to make a feeding station off the bottom of the tank. It helps keep the worms out of the dish during feeding.

 

[Mark Shelly]

I had some palm tree polyps that had red around their polyp bases that the polyp could withdrawal into. But the red may have been cyanobacteria as it was not hard and disappeared over time. Pipe organ coral tubes are hard, and brittle. You can see the skeleton on ebay if you search for pipe organ corals. But they will be from long-established corals that had died.

 

[MonsterReef]

So I can leave it? It won't get too big? It won't hurt my scooter bottom feeder? I got about 40 off it when I dipped it the first time.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

If you redip, can you maybe move the rock to the front of the tank, before you remove it all together, and take a picture. And perhaps another when it's out? If it's hydroids, manually pull them off or cut/scrape them off. The stalks bend, but they adhere like superglue.

No one can really tell you how to treat this, unless we can see it better.

 

[Triggreef]

There's always the reef epoxy smothering it you find they are hydroids and you want to get rid of them.