Any ideas on the purple “clove polyp” like stuff in the background? (I know what a Devil’s Hand is. It’s in the foreground and is included to give a sense of scale.)
Really rough image of the mystery item as the camera seems to be focused on the Devils hand. Now that we can see the scale can you get a better close up shot of the mystery animal?
Is this something you just bought that was labeled “purple clove polyp” or something that just started to grow off a rock? Are the polyps retractile?(IE do they disappear when into a tube or into the rock when you touch them) From the image it is hard to tell if this is something that is Clavularia type or a Tubipora type animal.
Need a little more information to get an ID. I don’t think it is an animal that I’ve kept before or that I’m too familiar with though.
I am also leaning more towards pipe organ or clove myself. Briareum(encrusting gorgonian) and some form of star polyps are two other possablitys. Feather dusters wouldn’t have a solid dot in the center of them.
Briareums over grow everything and people purchase it to grow over power heads and over flow boxes. I have some in my qt that over grew some blue Anthelia and just out competed it. Was just a small hitchhiker on the side about a month and a half ago, now it is the whole rock. I’ve seen brown, green, and blue varieties which could easily be called purple under the right light.
Hey, Al, Thanks for shrinking down the bug. But perhaps it should be removed. I swiped it from a Divers Blog. Good chance its a personal dive video. it was his logo/avatar/ something or other. I’ll copy the little one before it goes though.
Green star polyps def spread a purple coraline looking goo around and then pop their polyps out of that, that pic looks similar to the ones I got, but hard to tell with the pic.