Something is Bothering my Frogspawn

[Steve Erekson]

Greetings. So I've had a Frogspawn for the past few months that just refuses to fully open anymore and I've been watching the tissue slowly recede up the skeleton more and more. I've done all the usual suspects of more flow, less flow, more light, less light, cleaner water, dirtier water, alk stability, etc etc etc

What I do know is that the skeleton is covered in calcareous worms of some sort. There was one vermetid at one point on the skeleton but I'm pretty sure I took care of him months ago with a screwdriver and some superglue. Haven't seen him pop out since. But back to the calcareous worms, they are really, really, really small. I'm talking maybe the size of a grain of sand small and the skeleton of this frogspawn probably has a few dozen on it.

There appear to be two different varities: one that has two antennae like a spinoid worm would, but these also have hard shells which is unusual for a spinoid if I recall. Then we have a variety that has a red crown that makes me think some kind of feather duster. Both of them do that swirly little pattern like a vermetid would, but I don't see the typical mucus web that comes out so I really don't think they are vermetids.

Here are some pictures of the suspects. It's amazing what cellphone cameras can do these days isn't it? Remember these guys are smaller than a piece of my Caribsea special grade sand.

This one you can see the guys on the edge with the kinda blurry red crowns as well as some swirly ones in the foreground.

And here you can see the ones with the double antennae like a spinoid would have.

I don't really think either of these are what is bothering my frogspawn, but then that leaves me with the most important question that I still can't answer: What is?

 

[Katrina71]

That's a lot of critters on it.

 

[Steve Erekson]

That's a lot of critters on it.

I've got tons of these little guys all over the tank. But again, very very small.

 

[Katrina71]

I had 2 vermatids on mine and it was annoyed.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I personally would pull it and clean aggressively with a hard toothbrush or similar,
Hammer does best at lower tank under moderate flow and moderate lighting heavier on blue

 

[Steve Erekson]

I had 2 vermatids on mine and it was annoyed.

I can imagine. But I'm pretty sure these aren't vermetids so would they cause the same issue and irritate it enough to cause this?

I personally would pull it and clean aggressively with a hard toothbrush or similar,
Hammer does best at lower tank under moderate flow and moderate lighting heavier on blue

I might try that out. I have it in the bottom corner of a tank in a pretty reasonable flow amount imo. My lighting is 2x24w T5 and about 2x24w LED. Spectrum isn't heavy blue by today's standards at all (gross) but it is definitely around the level of an XM 20k Halide and I've had a ton of success with Euphyllia under lighting conditions much whiter than this.