ID of fuzzy thing

[mizimmer90]

I noticed some fuzzy stuff growing at the bottom of my torch coral the other day. Any ideas? Torch hasn't been happy for a while and I wonder if this is related.

Fungus? Pest? Bacteria?

Also, potentially unrelated but I find my emerald crab in this spot every night!

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

I noticed some fuzzy stuff growing at the bottom of my torch coral the other day. Any ideas? Torch hasn't been happy for a while and I wonder if this is related.

Fungus? Pest? Bacteria?

Also, potentially unrelated but I find my emerald crab in this spot every night!

That appears to be a sponge, so I'd guess that it's not the reason your torch is unhappy (most sponges are totally harmless to corals).

 

[mizimmer90]

That appears to be a sponge, so I'd guess that it's not the reason your torch is unhappy (most sponges are totally harmless to corals).

Thanks for the reply! Do you think it is one sponge or a bunch? Any idea what kind?

Yeah, I figured my torch is probably unhappy with my tanks flow lol

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Thanks for the reply! Do you think it is one sponge or a bunch? Any idea what kind?

Yeah, I figured my torch is probably unhappy with my tanks flow lol

Looks like it's probably one sponge to me - no idea what kind, but sponge ID can be difficult:

Pineapple sponges are from the genus Sycon - The more common pineapple sponges in our tanks can pretty easily be ID’ed by sight (short, round, spiky/fuzzy, has a little spiky crown/funnel looking thing around the opening). Some other pineapple sponge species are much harder to differentiate, and - like many (likely most) sponge species alive - may require microscopic examination and/or DNA testing to actually ID accurately. These sponges in the pics are fuzzy, but they lack the typical “pineapple crown” around the opening, so, they might be pineapple sponges or they might not.

Personally, I wouldn’t feel comfortable giving an ID beyond just saying they’re sponges, as these ones just don’t have enough obviously unique characteristics that I can see to ID from.

Anyway, here’s a good Sponge ID resource for anyone who’s interested- as mentioned, though, sometimes DNA is the best indicator for telling sponges apart:

https://www.fao.org/3/i7773e/i7773e.pdf

And, here’s a decent example of why sponge ID by non-microscopic sight is not always reliable:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/A-G-Live-specimens-of-Lissodendoryx-species-illustrating-variations-in-shape-and_fig6_248716402