Strange lumpy thing
- Thread starter jdillon
- Start date
Hi, i think your mystery lump is a sponge, just one of those with hard calcium spicules instead of spongin; hence the hard, rough texture.
Just leave it alone, they dont like much movement, those small ones tend to do okay in my tanks growing real slow but still growing.
And it looks like youve got some kind of rock dwelling brittle stars under it. Cant really tell. they stick out their arms and look like worms. Theyre pale beige/white with black/dark brown horizontal lines across the arms.
Just my tuppence worth. hope it helps.
Just leave it alone, they dont like much movement, those small ones tend to do okay in my tanks growing real slow but still growing.
And it looks like youve got some kind of rock dwelling brittle stars under it. Cant really tell. they stick out their arms and look like worms. Theyre pale beige/white with black/dark brown horizontal lines across the arms.
Just my tuppence worth. hope it helps.
Sugar Magnolia
New Member
Can you remove it? Or is it firmly attached? Does it move at all?
Thanks for the help, everyone! Part of me was irrationally afraid it was some freaky eggpod that would explode and unleash terrible things on my poor tank or something. Silly, I know, but I can't help it. 
It's pretty firmly attached, and conforms to the contours of the rock. I haven't touched it since I put it in the tank, but it did seem to want to stay put. The only place that it isn't suction-cupped to the rock is where the legs stick out.
The worm/starfish/legs are really strange. My first instinct was that it was a brittle star, too, since (based on my limited knowledge) these legs look and move an awful lot like brittlestars. There's now an extra leg poking out under the sponge, but what really strikes me as odd is that there are two more different legs/worms that look just like this poking out of completely different parts of the rock, much too far apart to be from the same critter (they're several inches away). Can brittlestars live inside rocks? The holes are just big enough for the legs to come out; I don't see how they could get their entire bodies out. Which makes me think they are worms instead, but they aren't uniform in width like you'd imagine a worm to be; they taper at the tips and get fatter further down. They also curl up like brittlestar legs. The rock does have a lot of small holes in it, but I don't see how I could have managed to get a rock infested with tiny brittlestars; it just seems to weird, especially considering that I didn't notice any in the tank that this came from at the fish store.
Well, regardless, I'm just relieved it isn't anything harmful. I'm still pretty new to saltwater aquariums. This 12 gallon nano cube is about a month old; it cycled within in two weeks and seems to be doing very well, but I'm still paranoid about inadvertently screwing something up. Thanks for helping ease my worry
Here's another picture of the extra worm/leg, in case anyone's interested. It's not a very good picture, but it's the best I could do with my lousy camera.
It's pretty firmly attached, and conforms to the contours of the rock. I haven't touched it since I put it in the tank, but it did seem to want to stay put. The only place that it isn't suction-cupped to the rock is where the legs stick out.
The worm/starfish/legs are really strange. My first instinct was that it was a brittle star, too, since (based on my limited knowledge) these legs look and move an awful lot like brittlestars. There's now an extra leg poking out under the sponge, but what really strikes me as odd is that there are two more different legs/worms that look just like this poking out of completely different parts of the rock, much too far apart to be from the same critter (they're several inches away). Can brittlestars live inside rocks? The holes are just big enough for the legs to come out; I don't see how they could get their entire bodies out. Which makes me think they are worms instead, but they aren't uniform in width like you'd imagine a worm to be; they taper at the tips and get fatter further down. They also curl up like brittlestar legs. The rock does have a lot of small holes in it, but I don't see how I could have managed to get a rock infested with tiny brittlestars; it just seems to weird, especially considering that I didn't notice any in the tank that this came from at the fish store.
Well, regardless, I'm just relieved it isn't anything harmful. I'm still pretty new to saltwater aquariums. This 12 gallon nano cube is about a month old; it cycled within in two weeks and seems to be doing very well, but I'm still paranoid about inadvertently screwing something up. Thanks for helping ease my worry
Here's another picture of the extra worm/leg, in case anyone's interested. It's not a very good picture, but it's the best I could do with my lousy camera.