What the heck is this?

nibes · Dec 7, 2023

Saw this going on my zoas today, any idea what it is? How should I treat it?

ISpeakForTheSeas · Dec 7, 2023

That's a solitary tunicate - a harmless filter feeder; no need to treat it at all (though you can offer it some phytoplankton if you want to try and help it do well).

nibes · Dec 7, 2023

Lovely thank you for that!

Tired · Dec 7, 2023

Oo, very nice! Tunicates tend to shrink up and disappear eventually for lack of food in most reef tanks, particularly newer ones, though I did have one that lived for a few years until a tank crash took it out. Hopefully yours does well.

Fun fact: tunicates, AKA sea squirts, are our closest non-vertebrate relatives. They have a primitive notochord as a baby, a bit like our spinal cords. Baby sea squirts are sort of like boneless tadpoles, little wiggling things with organs and brains and all, and then as adults they glue their heads to surfaces and turn into strange bags. They lose the brain and notochord, as those are expensive to maintain and not needed for an animal doing a decent mimicry of a sponge.

Reefkeepers Archive · Dec 7, 2023

Tired said:
Oo, very nice! Tunicates tend to shrink up and disappear eventually for lack of food in most reef tanks, particularly newer ones, though I did have one that lived for a few years until a tank crash took it out. Hopefully yours does well.

Fun fact: tunicates, AKA sea squirts, are our closest non-vertebrate relatives. They have a primitive notochord as a baby, a bit like our spinal cords. Baby sea squirts are sort of like boneless tadpoles, little wiggling things with organs and brains and all, and then as adults they glue their heads to surfaces and turn into strange bags. They lose the brain and notochord, as those are expensive to maintain and not needed for an animal doing a decent mimicry of a sponge.

I have soo many in my system. In fact some of them are starting to cover my coral

though I have the transparent species. Helps that I feed phyto every other day