Looks like little tentacles / filamentous floating things?

[Autumnsky]

Help solve my mystery please!

What are these little thread like filamentous things floating on top of the water.

This is a big bunch, you should click the pic to see it better - mid to lower right of the Monti frag...


They seem to almost (maybe just the water) move like they are alive or something, just odd and was wondering if anyone knows what it is?

I catch them with the edge of a paper towel to whisk them into the trash, just in case they are alive and sting or something. My guess was a sloughing of the tentacles of the corals. Or some kind of hydra thing??? I see this occasionally on the top of the water sometimes just a few bits though this bunch was considerably larger that usual.

[Istrom]

Looks like a clump of hair xD

[Autumnsky]

Well the pic does, but it isn't. With daughters and dogs, I definitely know what hair looks like. lol They look like a little bunch of things, a lot like feeder tentacles that got loose and are together in a clump. Saw a few more last night, but there were just a few strands. In two tiny bunches.

[Mattyfelts]

vermetid snail webs?

[54seaweed]

agree with matt with vermetid snails , get as much out as possible ,
remember my white hair episode on my sand bed I wound up replacing around 80% of my sand bed because these stupid snails took over,
you want to get them out before you encounter this!!!! definitely not fun

[Autumnsky]

Thank you both I will look into that tonight. The Halimeda has some white looking stuff on the bases of it which looks similar to the pic you posted Seaweed. Yikes, that looks like a big mess! NO WAY do I want that! I will report back tomorrow what I might find and some additional pics of the base of it.

[54seaweed]

if you only have sections like that cut it out and remove , just be careful not to stir up sand and keep a eye on parameters as you may need to do a water change ,
mine had all kinds of stalks embedded in the sand almost looked like a brick of ramon noodles

[Autumnsky]

No sand yet. I was kind of still deciding and need to buy it.

I saw 10-15 Vermetid encasements under one of my rocks, I noticed it when i put it in there on the do over scape.

Can I cut them off with a little thin screw driver or awl or razor blade down into the rock?

[Sniperhank]

Yeah, you can simply just cut them off.

[54seaweed]

the ones on the rock you could cut and scrap off
if you have free floaters in the sand those sections of sand will need to be removed
these things work fast

[Autumnsky]

Good to know - thanks guys. Since there aren't too many rocks in the 12G , I might be able to scrape off all of them. I have some little feather dusters in my other tank and wasn't sure if these particular ones were good or bad. So now I know. The finger puncturer ones will need to go! Wish I would have been sure about that before I got it in there. Hopefully that is the issue Probably won't be able to get to that removal til Friday.

[Autumnsky]

Oh also I read some people say that Emerald Crabs eat them, do any of you know about that?

[Autumnsky]

here is the other pic, I forgot to load it

[54seaweed]

wow never seen it go after macro
I have 20 emeralds in my take never seen them touch it

did you find any of this in your sand
this was from my infestation of them


was like a living hell getting all that sand out
finally I used my wet dry vac sucked up small sections over a 10 day stretch so I had
no big swings than I needed to sift through all that nasty stuff to find a lot of my hermits that like to burrow through the sand think I found most of them
just hope yours didn't get to this point yet , wouldn't wish it on anyone

[Autumnsky]

No not like that, [bulging eyes] No sand in this tank yet.

[54seaweed]

that saves you that headache did you find a lot on the rock work
I bought a small hand held underwater acetylene torch to burn mine off the rocks
it nice since no gas comes out till you pull trigger to ignite and it ignites
underwater , looks almost like a bbq lighter but a little bigger , I can just burn them off as I find them not to add to much fumes in water think I'm almost done just in time for corals

[Sniperhank]

The webbing being in the macro is probably just where the flow took it when it was trying to filter feed. You can simply siphon that out with airline tubing while you are working in the tank or doing a water change.


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

[Autumnsky]

Thanks! I will try sucking it out and see if it comes back.