Unrelated (or maybe not!) to my other Zoa post. I’ve had some ‘stuff’ growing on another colony of orange and yellow zoas. Wasn’t sure if it was bad or not so I let it go as it hadn’t effected any polyps, they all still looked open and happy go lucky. Well it slowly spread and covered a polyp and seemed to continue to spread so I yanked out the rock and did some slicing.
In the first pic is the colony in the water. The ‘goo’ is directly below the yellow fingered polyp.
Second pic another in the water shot.
Third pic slicing into the bottom most ‘goo’ that is pictured in the second pic.
The underside of the rock showed more of this ‘goo’.
Probably sponge or tunicate. Hard to tell. Next time you are at DPA take a look at the tunicates in there top right fish on the right wall behind the drain line.
BTW, very glad to see glove. Still careful with that blade. Cut through a zoa and then that fingers… I say this, but there probably isn’t a day of the week I don’t bleed. My finger prints are going to disappear, lol. Blades can be your best friend and worst enemy.
Yes I’ve come millimeters from slicing ligaments in my fingers waayy to many times.
So would the sponge/trunicate be a beneficial thing? Did I cut too soon? Either way the parts that were in the colony needed to be removed as they were covering polyps.
Hey sorry, I thought I answered the questions on AIM. Perhaps it was just a little too late at night and the information didn’t stick, lol. The majority of the time as Craig said, they are beneficial. Tunicates typically don’t live horribly long in out systems and some people pay good money for them. Sponges have mixed results depending on the systems parameters, lighting, and nutrient levels. Often times both prefer plankton foods including phyto.
Really hard to get a good idea from the images. If it grows back again snap more pics. I almost would have fragged the zoas away and put them on another rock to let both animals grow more.(zoas handle fragging a lot better then sponges) No worries just try to remember the rule of thumb for unknown critters in the future: “isolate, identify, then decide a plan of action”. It is easy to just remove anything you don’t know, but as Craig pointed out it could be a gem waiting to be discovered.
AIM doesn’t stick because I can’t read it again and everyone else doesn’t benefit from the knowledge ;). Sounds good, I’m not sure if I wiped out the whole colony or what. They def spread slowly so I’ll let you know in a month or so.
