coral hitch-hikers?

kristylove4

AC Members
Jul 25, 2008
25
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colorado
ive found a few things on my live rock, i assume theyre coral. if not...well thats why im here! i dont know what they are. im hoping to get some identification so i can figure out how to not kill them. ive squared off a few so theyre easier to make out.

mystery item #1 this seems to match item #2. its kind of brown but has a lot of bright green swirly type designs running through it.
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mystery item #2 as said, it matches #1 except it expands up, like i would expect a coral to. it has very bright green dots and swirlies in it. kind of hard to photograph, but its much brighter than it shows.
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mystery item #3 it had two coraly growths on it but one broke off (you can actually see that pretty well)
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mystery item #4 possibly a clam? it has tubes coming out of it.
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mystery item #5
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mystery item #6 obviously this one needs some detail. its extremely hard to photograph because its SO tiny and far back in the tank. its orange with yellow 'ball' tips on it.
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mystery items #7 & #8
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mystery item #9 its clear and i wasnt sure if its a plant or something.
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and finally the anemone, i was wondering, is it dying? its quite open and i can see into its mouth, ive never seen it this open before.
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hope i can get some answers and my pics arent too bad!
 
good to know, 7 and 8 will be staying :D
i forgot to add. on 1 and 2 the guy we got it from said something about it being a texas cactus or something like that, i cant remember but it was along those lines.
 
1 - some type of sponge
2 - dunno, but maybe sponge
3 - encrusting coral of some sort
4 - turkey wing clam
5 & 6 - sponge
7 & 8 - coralline algae

anemone - feed it some mysis, plankton, silversides, anything meaty

what type of lights do you have? the anemone needs good lighting, but will probably roam around if it's not happy where it's at. If it's not sticky and won't eat, it probably won't last long, but keep squirting food at it from time to time. Try some frozen cyclops in the mix. Looks like it will be a very pretty specimen!

excellent live rock! where did you get it from?
 
#4 and #5 beneficial algae, and tubes should be feather dusters, but just wait to see what comes out
 
4 is definitely a turkey wing clam - you can see it's mouth in the center of the picture. I agree, the tubes around it are probably feather dusters. I have turkey wings on my rock and they look just like this. Beneficial filter feeders. Just make sure you don't stack a rock on it so it can't open up. 5 looks like sponge to me, but could be coralline. You should be able to decide by the texture, is it hard or spongey? ;)
 
oh, and don't get rid of anything, everything is fine. what kind of light you have there for your anemone and do you feed it?
 
thanks for the help! our lighting is one 10,000k and one actinic. both 20 watt T12's (dont know if that means anything haha). theyre single tubes, not the u-shaped ones. we asked our two favrite local fish stores what they suggested and thats what multiple employees at each said so thats what we got :)
last night one of our anemones ate a ghost shrimp we killed (accidently with the feeding tongs but hey, it worked) but i cant remember if it was the one i picutred or not. they both keep going from brown and stringy tenticles to full and super healthy looking. they just split only a few days ago so im not sure if that has something to do with it or not, i can see the 'injury' on both where they pulled apart. they move a lot but never too far, just resituating i suppose. last night one of them crawled into a whole under a rock so he is facing the sand, not the light. not sure if he will survive that way but i suppose if thats where he wants to be... the other one crawled onto the tube of the filter where it sucks water in and, im not sure if he was doing this or was getting sucked up, but his tenticles were in the tube so i decided to gently 'pry' him off.
nearly all of the live rock we got from a guy on CL breaking down his tank. $2 a lb! he had an in wall tank. not sure how you break one of those down but... haha.
on four and five, im not sure if the tubes you guys are talking about are the white ones or not? those ones have clear tenticles coming out with white balls on the end with a mouth in the center. they eat like anemones. if its the red tube, that one goes into the clam. i havent seen it open up but i only noticed it yesterday.
1, 2, 3, 5, 7, and 8 are all hard whatever they are. the rest are either squishy or clams haha.

ETA: does anyone know what the fuzzy stuff all over my rock is? it catches setiment (thank you engineer goby) and makes it always look dirty.
 
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