tiny palm trees

[sooju]

Does anyone know what these are? I have a dime-sized colony of light brown translucent polyps growing at the base of my finger leather. They look like tiny palm trees. They don't retract, and they seem to be stationary. They do not look like any picture I've seen of aptasia or majano or hydroids, but they also don't look like zoanthids so I'm not sure if they're good or bad. They're slowly spreading (toward the left side of the picture) by sending out a "runner" along which there are more evenly spaced tiny palm trees.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Sadielynn]

Hard to say 100% but they look like either green star polyps , or Xenia or Clavularia sp . Run a search through live aquaria to see if they match

 

[roka64]

Sounds like some sort of macro algae, can you get a closer pic?

 

[Sadielynn]

Roka they are center middle of pic between the siniliara (SP?) they really dont look like macro this is a colony of something starting coral wise ...

 

[roka64]

You may be right, the "runner" threw me off. It does look like a zenia or something similar....

 

[sooju]

I have xenia in another area and these look different (for one thing they don't pulse). And I have GSP in another area but they retract and these don't. Any other ideas?

EDIT: I searched for images of clavularia and it seems they all have feathery appendages. Mine are smooth along the stalk and each finger.

 

[Sadielynn]

I have xenia in our tank as well that looks very close to what you have ,mine is not on a stalk but rather individual polyps

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

...And I have GSP in another area but they retract and these don't. Any other ideas?

...

If they don't retract, they're most likely some species of anthelia. Do some searching around that species and see if you can't find something that looks like what you have.

 

[sooju]

I found a picture!

I was having no luck finding anything online doing google image searches for all the suggestions so far, but I opened my Aquarium Corals book (Borneman) and flipped through every soft coral pic only to find on page 117 with the description of "Family Clavulariidae: unidentified mat polyps with tubular tentacles" a picture that looks very similar to what I have. So the good news is these guys probably aren't bad and hopefully the finger leather doesn't mind the company on "his" rock. Thanks everyone!!

 

[Sadielynn]

Hard to say 100% but they look like either green star polyps , or Xenia or Clavularia sp . Run a search through live aquaria to see if they match

See told ya they should be just fine