Strange small fluorescent green "things"?

TinCanHero · Dec 10, 2019

Hello!
I've noticed these before in my tank but only one or two. Today when using my turkey baster as a blaster to remove some stuff from a coral of mine I noticed 4 - 5 of these inside the clear part of the baster free-floating so I removed them to a bowl to photograph and try and ID.

They are around 1/2 - 1/3 of the size of a UK 5p coin, roundish and flat. on the one side is a bright toxic neon green colour under blues while the other side seems brown. they are no more than 1mm in thickness too.

My phone has an auto-adjust on the colour that I cannot turn off so it's hard to photograph just how much they glow. I have to point my phone away then quickly at the subject and take the pic as its adjusting :/ Point being they really glow, maybe more so than anything else in my tank.

Kind regards, TinCanHero.

Icylder · Dec 10, 2019

Do you happen to have any hammer coral?

AllSignsPointToFish · Dec 10, 2019

They look like the remnants of a hammer coral polyp. Have you had any corals die lately?

TinCanHero · Dec 10, 2019

I do have a Toxic green hammer, but that guy is doing great. close in colour to these but I'm not sure they match. (check my build diary)

It did fall off the rock due to my tang a month or 6 weeks ago in that area and sustained a little damage but its 100% fine since then. I'm pretty sure I've seen these before in my tank thou. They also seem to be something rather than some part of something.

TinCanHero · Dec 10, 2019

Just took another look under blues, 100% different colours, they are much more fluorescent.

45ZoaGarden · Dec 10, 2019

They could be nudibranches but I think it’s a piece of your hammer as well. Every once in awhile a few tentacles of my neon frogspawn break off from a fish brushing up against it etc... they don’t harm the coral as my frogspawn is still doing great. I’m going with a piece of your hammer because the shapes and sizes of the “it” are inconsistent.

45ZoaGarden · Dec 10, 2019

Yes, it is the hammer then. Because it is a big piece shrink down to a pinpoint size, that’s a lot of zoanthaxille in one tiny area.

TinCanHero · Dec 10, 2019

I've taken another look at them and im not sure id agree its the hammer, they look almost like they have a foot under them - or a bottom and top. they have curled up a little since being on the plate too. If it where the hammer id almost expect to see some flesh or taring around the edges? these seem pretty well-formed.
I'm tempted to place them onto the sandbed and watch to see what happens.

45ZoaGarden · Dec 10, 2019

You’d see no tearing if it was a hammer tentacle

45ZoaGarden · Dec 10, 2019

Matter of fact, I’m 100% sure on the hammer tentacle theory.

The last don · Dec 10, 2019

Take a look at then at night, they look similar to something in mine.
They seem to pop up on the sandbed close to the side off a rock. I’ve notice at night they put out sweepers so I don’t think it’s a hammer because I don’t have one.
I be had a bloom off them twice now then they disappear, but I don’t have the most stable off tanks.

45ZoaGarden · Dec 10, 2019

The last don said:
Take a look at then at night, they look similar to something in mine.
They seem to pop up on the sandbed close to the side off a rock. I’ve notice at night they put out sweepers so I don’t think it’s a hammer because I don’t have one.
I be had a bloom off them twice now then they disappear, but I don’t have the most stable off tanks.

Probably colonial hydroids.

ahiggins · Dec 10, 2019

For what it’s worth, I’m almost thinking hammer

eschaton · Dec 11, 2019

I'm tempted to say they might be some rarer type of foram. Try looking at one under magnification and seeing if anything is coming out of the main body.

TinCanHero · Dec 11, 2019

We are 24h in, I placed them all in the corner of the tank last night. all but one have gone somewhere, the one that I can see is 6" from where I placed it, right way up and looks to be "open" or flat on the sandbed. still looks the same as yesterday and the colour is also the same. I was thinking about it last night, I think last time I saw these a few months ago I saw one stay put for almost a week?

Would a hammer have rotted away by then if it were apart of it?

Unfortunately, I don't have a microscope. I had to zoom in for the pics in my BD, any closer and it becomes grainy.

Kind regards, TinCanHero.

45ZoaGarden · Dec 11, 2019

It was probably fish or the flow that moved them. No, my euphyllias lose tentacles all the time and are fine. They stay floating around for a couple of weeks.

TinCanHero · Dec 11, 2019

45ZoaGarden said:
It was probably fish or the flow that moved them. No, my euphyllias lose tentacles all the time and are fine. They stay floating around for a couple of weeks.

In that case, you may be correct after all. I was assuming they would die off pretty quick if they were parts of my hammer. It's 100% flow that moved them, sorry I wasn't trying to say they moved on there own

extremely weird if it is the hammer thou, I wouldn't have guessed in a hundred years it would happen like that! wonder under the right conditions if this could be a viable propagation method?

Kind regards, TinCanHero.

45ZoaGarden · Dec 11, 2019

TinCanHero said:
In that case, you may be correct after all. I was assuming they would die off pretty quick if they were parts of my hammer. It's 100% flow that moved them, sorry I wasn't trying to say they moved on there own
extremely weird if it is the hammer thou, I wouldn't have guessed in a hundred years it would happen like that! wonder under the right conditions if this could be a viable propagation method?

Kind regards, TinCanHero.

I’m not sure on the propagation. I’ve heard of the entire head leaving the skeleton and starting another colony somewhere else though....