What are these pod looking things?

[gruntermcbride]

Hello -

I went to take out my protein skimmer and after a minute noticed when I tried to scrap off one of these pod things, there appeared to be some micro-organism crawling around out of it. To my completely untrained eye it looks like a new born shrimp or something - but likely I'm way off.

The photos don't show the micro-organism but do give a good look at the pods.

I put the skimmer back in the tank ASAP in hopes I didn't just kill everything without knowing what it was first.

Any ideas what they are?

 

[Palyzoa]

They look like sponges, Probably pods crawling in around in them.

 

[gruntermcbride]

They look like sponges, Probably pods crawling in around in them.

Do you have an article or video you'd suggest that describes these a little more? Are they good/bad, is it something I shouldn't feel bad about to destroy if I need to take my protein skimmer out of the water to clean/fix it?

 

[Palyzoa]

Try googling copepods and see if they look anything like what you saw. Also sponges, pineapple sponges.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Look up pineapple sponge. Common in new tanks , usually fade away in thier own.
Harmless filter feeder.

Are the top ones red or is that the camera?

A neat hitchhiker site.

https://www.lionfishlair.com/hitchhikers-guide/

And welcome to Reef2reef!