What's irritating my palys?

[Chortanator]

I have several frags on this frag holder, but only my palys seem to be irritated. It almost looks like ball anemone tendrils, but aren't as uniform. I do have ball anemones growing on my other frags and parts of my live rock, and mild aiptasia (3 heads) that I'm treating tomorrow. I couldn't blow it off with a turkey baster.

 

[Zos4me]

Could be light ,flow or sand blowing around.maybe some type of critter disturbing them

 

[Chortanator]

It looks like there's something on them that is stringy, not quite a hair algae. It is only on this frag

 

[ahiggins]

It looks like there's something on them that is stringy, not quite a hair algae. It is only on this frag

I see the brown film you’re talking about. It will “scrub” off with a soft bristle toothbrush but it always came back on my frags that had it. It’s odd. That’s why I can’t grow tiny zooanthids, only palys. I had a few thrive till one day a huge colony was affected by this and poof, whittled away to nothing.
Sorry I can’t help more-my tanks look great and parameters have always been stable, I don’t have the answer for the brown stuff

 

[Chortanator]

Thanks for the advice. If it's anything like hair algae or aiptaisia, scrubbing will get it off but will latch on to more places. I'll take the frag out tomorrow and scrub it in a little cup of water and let you know the results. If it comes back I'll probably just toss it cause a $20 frag isn't worth ruining all my zoas

 

[Chortanator]

Here is a better picture. I was able to scrub it off the frag plug and used as much pressure as i felt comfortable with on the polyps but didn't come off. Does anyone have any ideas?

 

[ahiggins]

That picture makes me think hydroids-the brown algae is unrelated.
Check this out: https://reefs.com/pest/hydroids/

 

[DSC reef]

Those are hydroids that are irritating the zoas.

 

[jeffchapok]

Dip the frag in a 50/50 mix of tank water and H2O2 for no more than 2 minutes. That'll kill any hydroids or algae. It'll tick off the palys for up to a day or 2 as well, but they'll recover.

I've had a problem with GHA overgrowing my palys and zoas and this always takes care of it, at least for a while.