My acro got knocked over and I noticed these guys

[Jaybird]

Guess one of the snails pushed him over a bit last night and I noticed these guys on the base of the acro. They are very small, as you can see by the lobes of the acro in the picture.

At first I thought they were aiptasia, but that is the only place in the tank where these things exist, and they look different than aiptasia. The heads are a lot more feathery, almost like a pom-pom. These guys are right in some fairly strong current.

I hadn't noticed them as they were on the rear side of the plug that the acro is on.

Not sure if I should let them be or find a way to get rid of them.

 

[ccCapt]

Looks like colonial hydroids. I would take the coral out and scrape them off. They can get out of control and sting the coral.

 

[Jaybird]

I was afraid someone would say that. That's why I didn't immediately glue it back to the rock. I'll have to deal with that later today.

One good thing for the close photo: I was worried that the acro wasn't doing too well as I haven't noticed any polyps but I guess that I didn't realize that they could be that small.

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Agree with ccCapt.

 

[Jaybird]

I scraped the buggers off in a small container of tank water and rinced the acro to be sure there were no hangers-on. I hate when they slime like that. Thanks for the ID. Guess they must have been on the plug when I got the acro and I never noticed them. I noticed some bleaching of the coral near the base and was looking after it had been knocked over when I noticed them. They were probably the cause of the bleaching.