serpulid Tubeworm ID ?

[mgirdwood]

Hi, Just noticed these in the tank after moving one of my small rocks. i hope that they are feather dusters rather than something to consider removing. they are aprox 1-1.5 cm long in the tube and the heads are around .5cm and the colour is almost neon green.
Thoughts welcome
Thanks - Mark

 

[Fishy888]

At first glance I thought they were aiptasia but the tentacles are too fine and they are neon green as you mentioned. I believe they are palythoas. That is a good thing. I am going to add some zoas and palys to my system hopefully within the next month or so.

 

[mgirdwood]

Thanks for the reply Fishy, i have some Zoas near to these but is didn't think palythoas had such long tube structure and also when the water is disturbed close to them they pull backwards into the tube hence my thought that they were a tubeworm.

At first glance I thought they were aiptasia but the tentacles are too fine and they are neon green as you mentioned. I believe they are palythoas. That is a good thing. I am going to add some zoas and palys to my system hopefully within the next month or so.

 

[Fishy888]

Yeah I believe there are some palythoas that can retract. Aiptasia cannot retract just into a tube and feather duster fans are cone shaped. These have disks with mouths. I will see if I can find out exactly which palys these are if they are indeed palythoas.

 

[Fishy888]

Not quite the same as yours but button polyps were my first guess. Button polyps are a type of palythoa.

 

[Fishy888]

Here is what yellow button polyps look like. I hope to find some of these soon myself.

 

[Goaway]

These look more like a hydroid sp. Colonial hydroid sp of some name.

 

[Fishy888]

These look more like a hydroid sp. Colonial hydroid sp of some name.

Can they be neon green though?

 

[Fishy888]

Can they be neon green though?

Evidently they can be. I think Mibu is right.

 

[Goaway]

Can they be neon green though?

Some strains are. Most wont have fluorescence.

 

[sp1187]

i want.

 

[Soren]

@mgirdwood Are the tubes/stalks hard or soft? My first thought was that these looked similar to yellow button polyps as mentioned by @Fishy888 above, but your picture looks more to me like tubes instead of the soft stalk that button polyps have?
A quick search for colonial hydroid pictures does bring results very similar to what you have as @Mibu mentioned, so I tend to think this is the correct ID with verification on this older R2R thread about them.

Either way, I agree with @sp1187 : I want them, too!

 

[Fishy888]

I'd take a frag

 

[mgirdwood]

@mgirdwood Are the tubes/stalks hard or soft? My first thought was that these looked similar to yellow button polyps as mentioned by @Fishy888 above, but your picture looks more to me like tubes instead of the soft stalk that button polyps have?
A quick search for colonial hydroid pictures does bring results very similar to what you have as @Mibu mentioned, so I tend to think this is the correct ID with verification on this older R2R thread about them.

Either way, I agree with @sp1187 : I want them, too!

Apologies for the late reply Soren, yes the tubes are soft so it looks like the Hydroids ID is correct.

A quick search on Hydroids seems to suggest to get rid asap as they are considered a pest. Perhaps I will just keep an eye on them to see if they do spread as badly as mentioned elsewhere, although given that blue clove polyp have already spread heavily ( another hitchhiker arrival) we shall see.

Thanks everyone for the help - Mark