What is this white jelly film stuff?

[josgraha]

so I saw this odd white jelly surrounding the base of one of my soft corals. I pulled most of it off with a turkey baster but in a few days it was back and looking even more organized than before. It is a very bright, almost white color and has an odd ballooning movement to it, it looks like some white jelly film. Part of me wants to just remove it from my tank, coral and all and another part of me wants to see what it grows into from a scientific curiosity standpoint. However I know pests are the only thing that happen fast in reef aquariums so I'm more inclined to treat it as a pest. If I could describe the bio-film I would say it looks a bit like a tent or parachute but it gets larger over time.
Sorry the photos kinda suck

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

so I saw this odd white jelly surrounding the base of one of my soft corals. I pulled most of it off with a turkey baster but in a few days it was back and looking even more organized than before. It is a very bright, almost white color and has an odd ballooning movement to it, it looks like some white jelly film. Part of me wants to just remove it from my tank, coral and all and another part of me wants to see what it grows into from a scientific curiosity standpoint. However I know pests are the only thing that happen fast in reef aquariums so I'm more inclined to treat it as a pest. If I could describe the bio-film I would say it looks a bit like a tent or parachute but it gets larger over time.
Sorry the photos kinda suck

Would need a better photo, but the hole and the description points to a tunicate, which are harmless filter feeders, is it more like a firm gelatin or more like a thick water?

 

[josgraha]

thank you so much, i'll work on a better photo, there's other corals around messing with the autofocus, it's definitely more like a firm gelatin when i tried to export it with the turkey baster, it held together surprisingly well

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

thank you so much, i'll work on a better photo, there's other corals around messing with the autofocus, it's definitely more like a firm gelatin when i tried to export it with the turkey baster, it held together surprisingly well

No problem! I have them growing all around my platygyra. Haven't bothered it except one time when there were simply too many, they're very easy to remove in case as they aren't like aptasia (in the sense that they can't regrow from a fragment)

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Yeah, either sponge or tunicates - they should be harmless/beneficial filter feeders either way; some sponges and tunicates can be invasive (your specimen is definitely not an invasive tunicate species; it's more difficult to ID invasive sponges, so I can't guarantee anything there), but as long as the corals nearby aren't seeming abnormally unhappy, and as long as the sponges aren't growing over the top of and smothering the corals then they're not harmful.

 

[josgraha]

thank you so much again, very fortunate there's so many marine biologists here. based on what I could find it might be a tunicate, unfortunately it has attached itself to the base of a soft coral (encrusting gorgonian) and is smothering it a bit but the colony is branching so it's only covering a portion of one branch (you can see the polyps sticking out). here's a _slightly_ better photo but I had to fight with autofocus a lot just to get this. I took this photo last night and when I looked at it this morning, i noticed the hole moved slightly to the left and higher and there's some new jelly growth kinda flapping off to one side. So whatever it is (tunicate maybe) is thriving. If you have any advice on how you identify the various things appearing in a reef tank I would appreciate it but I'm assuming everyone here is just way more experienced than I am (<1 year, new guy, sorry)

 

[josgraha]

No problem! I have them growing all around my platygyra. Haven't bothered it except one time when there were simply too many, they're very easy to remove in case as they aren't like aptasia (in the sense that they can't regrow from a fragment)

is that a favia under the tunicate, whatever it is is gorgeous and your rocks are so pristeen! thank you very much again!

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

thank you so much again, very fortunate there's so many marine biologists here. based on what I could find it might be a tunicate, unfortunately it has attached itself to the base of a soft coral (encrusting gorgonian) and is smothering it a bit but the colony is branching so it's only covering a portion of one branch (you can see the polyps sticking out). here's a _slightly_ better photo but I had to fight with autofocus a lot just to get this. I took this photo last night and when I looked at it this morning, i noticed the hole moved slightly to the left and higher and there's some new jelly growth kinda flapping off to one side. So whatever it is (tunicate maybe) is thriving. If you have any advice on how you identify the various things appearing in a reef tank I would appreciate it but I'm assuming everyone here is just way more experienced than I am (<1 year, new guy, sorry)

Huh, by the growth pattern and rate it might also be a sponge, is it transparent/translucent or more of a milky white? Either way it's probably harmless

 

[josgraha]

is that a favia under the tunicate, whatever it is is gorgeous and your rocks are so pristeen! thank you very much again!

oh apologies you said it was a platygyra, wow... beatiful

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

If you have any advice on how you identify the various things appearing in a reef tank I would appreciate it but I'm assuming everyone here is just way more experienced than I am (<1 year, new guy, sorry)

Sponges and colonial tunicates can sometimes be incredibly difficult to tell apart (at least externally and without a microscope), but here's some advice for this particular situation:

colonial tunicates are typically very uniform, with all of the in-current siphons being roughly the same size and shape and being distributed very uniformly as well; sponges tend to be less uniform and more haphazard with their in-current siphons;

For other ID's, I tend to be pretty intense about figuring things out, so I'll go combing through a number of different databases to find something that matches or points me in the right direction if I'm not sure on the ID to start. The thread below lists most (I'm sure I've forgotten one or two) of the databases I use and has some info on them/using them:

Looking for a list of Marine fish

Does anyone know a good website or place that has a really nice selection of fish or just information about fish. I seem to constantly find new fish and never know the names. LiveAquaria has a okay selection but they are still missing some fish. Just looking for info with pictures and names...

www.reef2reef.com

That said, some ID's are easy, others are very difficult, and there's a lot of in between; for a lot of the easy ones, I'd recommend the threads below, but for the others time/experience, learning about marine life generally, extreme attention to detail, and occasionally a taxonomic key are what you need. (I've found that when first learning to try and ID various organisms, I would start looking at some type of organism - like starfish for example - and I'd see one that I thought looked like a match, but with more experience now in trying to ID starfish, I sometimes look back at my early efforts and facepalm a bit, because I can now readily tell that some of what I thought were matches were definitely not; all this to say that sometimes we start a bit "faceblind" (for lack of a better term at the moment) to different organisms - so they can all pretty much look the same even when they're obviously different - and experience attempting to ID/differentiate them helps with overcoming that).

The threads:

What is that!! A R2R guide to common new tank hitchhikers.

One of the greatest things about starting a reef tank is getting your live rock in and admiring all the diversity within it. The rock comes to life different creatures. This is a guide that I, along with a very well known critter identifier @KJ , have put together for the new reefer on what...

www.reef2reef.com

Guide to Common Hitchhikers in reef tanks.

The purpose of this thread is to hopefully assist hobbyists in obtaining the correct id and method of treatment to common hitchhikers. Both; the good ones and the bad ones. 1) Anemones: Some times called the flowers of the sea, many hobbyists keep them intentionally for their striking colors...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[josgraha]

Sponges and colonial tunicates can sometimes be incredibly difficult to tell apart (at least externally and without a microscope), but here's some advice for this particular situation:

For other ID's, I tend to be pretty intense about figuring things out, so I'll go combing through a number of different databases to find something that matches or points me in the right direction if I'm not sure on the ID to start. The thread below lists most (I'm sure I've forgotten one or two) of the databases I use and has some info on them/using them:

Looking for a list of Marine fish

Does anyone know a good website or place that has a really nice selection of fish or just information about fish. I seem to constantly find new fish and never know the names. LiveAquaria has a okay selection but they are still missing some fish. Just looking for info with pictures and names...

www.reef2reef.com

That said, some ID's are easy, others are very difficult, and there's a lot of in between; for a lot of the easy ones, I'd recommend the threads below, but for the others time/experience, learning about marine life generally, extreme attention to detail, and occasionally a taxonomic key are what you need. (I've found that when first learning to try and ID various organisms, I would start looking at some type of organism - like starfish for example - and I'd see one that I thought looked like a match, but with more experience now in trying to ID starfish, I sometimes look back at my early efforts and facepalm a bit, because I can now readily tell that some of what I thought were matches were definitely not; all this to say that sometimes we start a bit "faceblind" (for lack of a better term at the moment) to different organisms - so they can all pretty much look the same even when they're obviously different - and experience attempting to ID/differentiate them helps with overcoming that).

The threads:

What is that!! A R2R guide to common new tank hitchhikers.

One of the greatest things about starting a reef tank is getting your live rock in and admiring all the diversity within it. The rock comes to life different creatures. This is a guide that I, along with a very well known critter identifier @KJ , have put together for the new reefer on what...

www.reef2reef.com

Guide to Common Hitchhikers in reef tanks.

The purpose of this thread is to hopefully assist hobbyists in obtaining the correct id and method of treatment to common hitchhikers. Both; the good ones and the bad ones. 1) Anemones: Some times called the flowers of the sea, many hobbyists keep them intentionally for their striking colors...

www.reef2reef.com

wonderfully put, thank you so much for the resources as well

 

[josgraha]

wow, so i took another look at this thing today and it seems to be thriving because I'm seeing what looks like "bubbles" appearing across the film and one of them apparently has a hole in it and the others look like they're starting to form a central area where a hole might appear. wow this is some odd stuff and the turbulence from the powerhead makes it looks like a hot air balloon inflating on a windy day. i think i'm just going to have to let it keep growing out of scientific curiosity although it is steadily climbing up that poor gorgonian.