Any idea what this is?

D

dexterscoral

Member
We moved around some live rock today to make room for some new frags and found this guy nestled underneath one of the pieces.

Any idea what it is? The tips on it are pink.
 
I'm new to this so any information is helpful. Probably not a good one how? Harmful to fish? other coral?

Should I take it out of the tank?
 
Its a baby urchin you sillys. Once he gets bigger his spines will stick up. As juvies the spines are out sideways. Great algae eater and will eat new colleline growth on the glass. Keep it.
 
scotty said:
Its a baby urchin you sillys. Once he gets bigger his spines will stick up. As juvies the spines are out sideways. Great algae eater and will eat new colleline growth on the glass. Keep it.
Click to expand...

+1.

Nems don't have arms that pointed, and also have a mouth in the center, lol.

Also, the spines are soft until a certain age as well.
 
We just found it, and it seems to be attached to the rock. We haven't seen it before, which leads me to believe it isnt very mobile.

We were spot feeding the rest of our coral last night, and gave it some food which seemed to make it pretty happy.
 
Bad nems are most likely to cause problems by overpopulating your tank and just being ugly/not what you intended to keep. Majanos and Aiptasia (sometimes called glass) are the most common culprets and they can sting corals. If you try to just pluck them out you can release spores into your tank and you can end up with exponentially more of them. Many people tend to err on the side of caution and will kill/remove any unidentified nem. You can cover them with kalkwasser paste or buy chemicals that remove them or take the rock out and carefully scrape and rinse the area so that nothing remains or you can just let it ride and see what it does. I personally had a tiny unidentified nem on my LR when I got it and I chose to let it live and see what it turned into. Fortunately it was a rock or flower nem which I've seen for sale for hundreds of dollars. Your looks like it might be something a little different. I might suggest a google image search on pseudocorynactis if I was going to guess, but those straight tentacles are very interesting. Definitely keep us posted and maybe try to get a beter picture if you have some time. If the rock is on is moveable, you might try placing to closer to the glass to make that easy. FWIW, I would take it from you if you decide to get rid of it and the rock is easily moveable. DO NOT just grab it with a tweezers until you know what it is though. Like I said, that could quickly make your tank a 1 species only affair if it's the wrong kind. Good luck and welcome to CR.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2002/10/inverts
 
Thanks for the feedback. For now it is kind of out of the way, so we will probably just leave it and see what it becomes. I'll try and get a better picture if it gets any bigger and will keep you posted
 
I took the original photos with my phone. I'll try to take a better one with my camera when I get home.

The "mouth" is definately on the top of it. It was grabbing the food with its tenticles and putting it in its mouth.
 
OK - I may have to eat my words.

My husband fed "it" this morning when the lights were off. When the lights came on, it went into hiding. I came home from work and can't find it at all.

So either it IS mobile, or it is hidden deep in the rock. Either way, whatever it is does not like light.

are urchins or nems light averse?
 
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