Weird Egg with flagellum? Polyp? Coral or crab eggs?

BloopFish · Jan 3, 2020

Hey guys, I found some weird purple egg looking things floating around - I've never seen something like this. This occurred at night around 12:00 am. I recently did a large water change after a 2 week leave, so I am guessing that's what triggered it. I have many things that it might be from... I have decorator crabs, pitho crabs, Cuapetes shrimps, pistol shrimp, so many types of snails, various other types of crabs and hermit crabs... the list of crustaceans go on. I also suspect it may be from corals? I keep various sps, zoas, and mushrooms.

If you look closely it has a flagellum that it whips around, it is squishy looking and very purple... must be an egg of some sort...

lkriley · Jan 3, 2020

BloopFish said:
Hey guys, I found some weird purple egg looking things floating around - I've never seen something like this. This occurred at night around 12:00 am. I recently did a large water change after a 2 week leave, so I am guessing that's what triggered it. I have many things that it might be from... I have decorator crabs, pitho crabs, Cuapetes shrimps, pistol shrimp, so many types of snails, various other types of crabs and hermit crabs... the list of crustaceans go on. I also suspect it may be from corals? I keep various sps, zoas, and mushrooms.

If you look closely it has a flagellum that it whips around, it is squishy looking and very purple... must be an egg of some sort...

That is pretty cool! I've never seen it before. I doubt you have to worry, you know it is something already in your tank, unless you very recently added something foreign.

BloopFish · Jan 3, 2020

I'm also thinking it might be a coral sperm?

BloopFish · Jan 3, 2020

lkriley said:
That is pretty cool! I've never seen it before. I doubt you have to worry, you know it is something already in your tank, unless you very recently added something foreign.

I've honestly added so many inverts the other day, so it's hard to rule out anything... but I have a feeling it's not them because they were just different types of shrimps, crabs and snails. This is also very odd to me because I came back to my tank with a couple bleached corals - so I wasn't expecting this at all.

P-Dub · Jan 3, 2020

lkriley said:
That is pretty cool! I've never seen it before. I doubt you have to worry, you know it is something already in your tank, unless you very recently added something foreign.

OK, officially VERY intrigued now! @ReefSquad

BornHandy · Jan 3, 2020

BloopFish said:
Hey guys, I found some weird purple egg looking things floating around - I've never seen something like this. This occurred at night around 12:00 am. I recently did a large water change after a 2 week leave, so I am guessing that's what triggered it. I have many things that it might be from... I have decorator crabs, pitho crabs, Cuapetes shrimps, pistol shrimp, so many types of snails, various other types of crabs and hermit crabs... the list of crustaceans go on. I also suspect it may be from corals? I keep various sps, zoas, and mushrooms.

If you look closely it has a flagellum that it whips around, it is squishy looking and very purple... must be an egg of some sort...

WHAAAAT!?!?

P-Dub · Jan 3, 2020

This is the closest match I could find...

BornHandy · Jan 3, 2020

Do you have a way to isolate it in the system, like a critter keeper? I feel like this is one of those things I'll randomly wonder about for the next 30 years...

Would love to see what it does over the next few dsys.

BloopFish · Jan 3, 2020

It's so tiny that it

BornHandy said:
Do you have a way to isolate it in the system, like a critter keeper? I feel like this is one of those things I'll randomly wonder about for the next 30 years...

Would love to see what it does over the next few dsys.

It's so tiny that I don't really have anything to put it in besides a bottle, maybe I should catch a few and put it inside one?

lkriley · Jan 3, 2020

I'd be interested in seeing what it hatches out to be. Maybe you could do that and just float it in the tank. Maybe change out a bit of water everyday. Kewl experiment!!

KJ · Jan 3, 2020

Valonia (red bubble algea)?

BloopFish · Jan 3, 2020

KJ said:
Valonia (red bubble algea)?

I currently have none in my tank, and the fact that it has a flagellum and that theres something inside that vibrates makes me think it might be more of an egg than a spore.

BloopFish · Jan 3, 2020

Update - the three purple egg looking things I caught in the bottle seemed to have died or disintegrated or something? No trace left.

taricha · Jan 4, 2020

What a mystery! Closest thing I could come up with was maybe a half-hatched something with its tail out of the egg.

BloopFish · Jan 5, 2020

Thought you guys would like an update. I have recently moved my Antilles sponge crab to an in tank isolation chamber. This morning I fed her and noticed many of the purple hatching egg looking things in her chamber - perhaps the eggs are from her? This is very odd to me because to my knowledge @reefcleaners have been holding this crab for a while before selling it to me - perhaps this crab is a species that can store sperm for some time?

P-Dub · Jan 5, 2020

And the mystery deepens...

lkriley · Jan 5, 2020

I wonder if they will indeed turn into anything? Very interesting.

HotManwich · Jan 6, 2020

Castration parasite?
If you said it was found under the crabs tail then there could be a chance it's a parasite that takes over the crabs mind and makes it take care of it's developing larvae for it. Then the larvae are released into the water column to find another host.

Maybe it's the larvae of one of those, but to be honest I have no idea!

BloopFish · Jan 6, 2020

HotManwich said:
Castration parasite?
If you said it was found under the crabs tail then there could be a chance it's a parasite that takes over the crabs mind and makes it take care of it's developing larvae for it. Then the larvae are released into the water column to find another host.

Maybe it's the larvae of one of those, but to be honest I have no idea!

Doesn't look like the nauplius of the Sacculina from what I could tell... but now you've made me worried about something I didn't even think to consider - parasites! I hope they aren't parasites, don't want my poor crabs turning into zombies. A parasite of some sort does make a lot of sense though... it doesn't look like any larval stage of any crabs I've looked up. Also, the purple "eggs" may have just gather there because a pump is flowing in that direction - hard to tell.

eschaton · Jan 6, 2020

Someone else had something similar recently, but was also unable to identify them.

To me they look like tunicate larvae, but they seem way too large to be that.