What is this?

[BonnieB]

Any idea what this is? It hitchhiked on a live rock and has been moving all over my tank…I think it’s really cool looking but no idea what it is! Thanks for the I.d. Help!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Do you have a top-down photo of it?

 

[tbrown]

Sorry, I started to answer this yesterday but it looks like I forgot to hit post.

It looks like a coral polyp that has detached. Sometimes Large Polyp Stony corals like torches and hammers can drop their polyps.

Also, anemones, mushrooms, and Zoas can detach from the rock and float around the tank looking for a new place to call home. Occasionally mushrooms and anemones will do this as they're dying.

Looking at it closely it definitely resembles more of an anemone or mushroom.

 

[BonnieB]

Thank you @tbrown! I don’t have top down but I can try to see if I can get that but it’s right up against the glass this morning…let me try!

I was thinking some kind of mushroom but nothing I google even closely resembles it. Since it was inside a rock and emerged and had slowly been moving all the way across the tank I wondered if it was something else.

 

[BonnieB]

I think this is top down in daylight…it’s so tiny it’s hard to tell!

 

[tbrown]

Is it hard or soft?

 

[tbrown]

Occasionally there will be a neon green or neon pink little flake in our reef tanks. Sometimes the size of a grain of sand, sometimes a little larger. My thoughts on those is that they're most likely "seeds" or corraline algae.

If it's soft, is assume it's a polyp of something but being tiny makes me lean more towards corraline.

 

[BonnieB]

No not that small. And definitely not coralline bc this is live and the top closes up when it feeds. Looks soft but I’m a newbie so honestly not sure. It will move like an anemone but there aren’t any tentacles. The first pic I sent is accurate as far as size against the sand and coloring, white stalk/foot and neon pink rim.

 

[Reef Wizard]

Kinda looks like a candy cane polyp does it have tentacles at night that come out

 

[Idech]

It looks like a mushroom to me.

 

[BonnieB]

Kinda looks like a candy cane polyp does it have tentacles at night that come out

It looks like that first picture at night. I’ve never seen it look any different.

 

[BonnieB]

Here’sa better picture in the day

 

[Reef Wizard]

It looks like that first picture at night. I’ve never seen it look any different.

If it doesn't have tentacles at night then I'm sure it's a mushroom

 

[BonnieB]

If it doesn't have tentacles at night than I'm sure it's a mushroom

OK great that is awesome!

 

[tbrown]

It looks an awful lot like my mushrooms when they let go of the rock.

That green is a lost Ricordea.

 

[BonnieB]

It looks an awful lot like my mushrooms when they let go of the rock.

That green is a lost Ricordea.

That would make sense since mine started in a rock then has migrated across the tank. A Wandering Shroom!

 

[BonnieB]

Thank you everyone! I’m just fascinated by it!

 

[vetteguy53081]

I too believe mushroom coral