What are these things

[lou dog420]

Popping up in several spots on my reef. Small, about the diameter of the ball on a ballpoint pen, orange colored, about an 8th of an inch long. Here's a crappy pic of one growing on a snail, top dead center.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

It looks like a vermetid.

I would remove it by scraping it off... it should be hard if it's a vermetid.

 

[lou dog420]

What is that?

 

[Lionfish Lair]

It's a snail in a tube that catches food using little webs. They are not harmful, but their web can be a pain as it can irritate corals from it constantly being dragged over them.

 

[lou dog420]

Thank you!!

 

[Rybren]

FWIW, I love watching them catch things on the web and then 'reeling the food in,' perhaps I'm just a weirdo