Little tenticles near polyps!!

[dt509]

I have noticed these small little tenticle type things on the same rock as some polyps . I'm not sure if they are hurting them or not, they have hairlike tenticles that move all over and touch everything around. they are banded with a greenish and brownish color. What could they be?
In the 1st pic it is near the top center and in the 2nd it is near the right center of the pic. I know the pics are not the clearest, but its all i've got.
thanks

 

[dt509]

the pics came up backwards, the one I called the 1st is actually the second and vise-versa.

 

[dt509]

Here are 2 more pics of this thing. I now think it is eating the polyps, there seems to be some brown looking debris where a polyp or 2 used to be. what is this thing? it has many tenticles and some are 2 or more inches long.

 

[Anemoneman]

Can't really see what you're talking about. Maybe an arrow or circle? My guess is a tubeworm - but they don't eat polyps that I'm aware of.

 

[something_fishy]

It looks like the arms of a serpant star, but I could be wrong.

 

[Brad]

shot in the dark..

I'll take a shot at this one from your description. I think I can almost see them in the picture...but I assume you are talking about extremely fine filaments that stretch out and wave around....kind of like really long, really thin tentacles.

If that's a good description, see if you can find a magnifying glass. These things are cool to watch. Each arm has a cross section sort of like a "U" shape. When it contacts small bits of sand, the sand gets into the "U" and is transported along the arm to the centre...where the animal lives. After collecting sand and bits for many hours with many such tentacles, the creature ejects the whole collection in a sudden squirt of slimy goo.

Anyway...in my observations this is what these things do and they certainly seem like harmless detritis feeders to me.

 

[dt509]

Do you know what they are called? To me, it looks like the arms are bothering the polyps. Every few days there is a small area of debris on and around this thing and at first I thought it was waste from an eaten polyp, but now I don't know. The polyps right near it don't seem to open up anymore. Are the ones that you've seen sort of a greenish maybe with black stripes? I'll try an get another pic up here tonight.

 

[dt509]

here is another pic, I know they are not that clear, but maybe it will help.
thanks,
dt509

 

[Brad]

no...

the one's I've got are mostly transparent. If you watch them extremely closely they actually collect small bits of sand and transport them along the length of the arms toward the middle. Along the way, many of the sand bits fall off and end up in small piles under the animal.

Each animal (mine) tends to have about 8 or more arms slithering about most all of the time.

After collecting little sand bits for quite a while, the creature jetisons all of the stuff in sudden burst that you would definately notice.

If this describes your creature, they are certainly harmless scavengers.

 

[dansemacabre]

Sounds like spaghetti worms? I've got a ton of the them. They collect sand and detritus, I've never seen them go for anything else, and they're very sensitive to light, retracting when I shine a light on them.

 

[Brad]

Spaghette worms...

..that's a good name for them!