Can someone ID this?

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neddis

Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2006
Messages
5
Location
Hermiston, OR
I looked around a bit in the galleries for an ID for this, but I couldn't find anything. It is attached to the side of the tank, but changes shape and moves, although very slowly. It's a little less than an inch long. I don't even know if it's algae, coral, sponge, worm, or whatever. The tank is a 5 gallon with about 5lbs of live rock and a 1" sand bed, which was all taken from established tanks. The tank has 48 watts of compact fluorescent light and 2 powerheads. SG is 1.025, pH is 8.3, temp is 80.5. The tank has been up and running since 7/1/06 and I haven't added any livestock to it yet. The only inhabitants are hitchhikers. If you need other info, let me know. Thanks in advance!
redthing.jpg
 
Looks like it might be some type of crinoid. Do a google image search and see what you find.

Cheers
Steve
 
Are you sure that thing moves or is it that it is just growing, so you think it is moving ?

I can not find anything like it or even close to it. Even on the H.M.S. Challenger page which has a gazillion line drawings of marinelife. My only guess, a very young and badly deformed basket star.

Can you get a clearer pic ?
 
Well, I took another pic... Don't know if it's better or not, but it show's how this thing is moving. The first one was taken 2 days before this one. Look at it in relation to the curve of the tank (that's what the wierd vertical line thing is). Sorry my camera sucks, this is about as good as it gets... keep in mind I haven't added any snails to take care of algae, that's why it's gross. Oh yeah, and as I was cropping the shot I realized there was a cat hair stuck to the tank, that's what that black line is. Thanks for looking!
redthing2.jpg
 
I'll follow this too, I have something similar on my base rock- but off white. To me it looks like a fungus, but they're terrestrial.
 
i have white ones on my rock too, but it is just sponge and it doesnt move. the thing on that neddis glass is totally different.
 
Neddis, if you look really close, do you see any holes...not exactly holes...but ummm, round craters in it's formation? If so, it could be a type of sponge. I found something similar on another forum ID site...although it's brown. The other site refers to something similar to Haliclona simulans. Hope that helps. Might wanna check the other site out as well..here's a link...
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/reef-hitchhiker-id/13031-can-anyone-id.html
 
Nope, no craters that I can see. Of course I could be wrong, this thing is less than an inch long... Thanks for all your help everyone. I hope that someday I found out what this wierd red alien organism is. :)
 
It is one of the crawling sponges, although I can not ID it. . Sponges can crawl by the amoeboid action.

Locomotion of sponges and its physical mechanism.
Bond C, Harris AK. Department of Biology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 27599-3280.

Active locomotion by individual marine and freshwater sponges across glass, plastic and rubber substrata has been studied in relation to the behavior of the sponges' component cells. Sequential tracing of sponge outlines on aquarium walls shows that sponges can crawl up to 160 microns/hr (4 mm/day). Time-lapse cinemicrography and scanning electron microscopy reveal that moving sponges possess distinctive leading edges composed of motile cells. Sponge locomotion was found to be mechanically similar to the spreading of cell sheets in tissue culture both with respect to exertion of traction (which causes the wrinkling of rubber substrata) and with respect to the patterns of adhesive contacts formed with the substratum (as observed by interference reflection microscopy). Other similarities include the orientation of sponge locomotion along grooves and the preferential extension onto more adhesive substrata. Neither the patterns of wrinkling produced in rubber substrata nor the distributions of adhesive contacts seen by interference reflection microscopy show evidence of periodic, propagating waves of surface contractions, such as would be expected if the sponges' mechanism of locomotion were by peristalsis or locomotory waves. Our observations suggest that the displacement of sponges is achieved by the cumulative crawling locomotion of the cells that compose the sponge's lower surface. This mode of organismal locomotion suggests new explanations for the plasticity of sponge morphology, seems not to have been reported from other metazoans, and has significant ecological implications
 
By the way, I forgot, give returnofsid a thumbsup. I wanted to beat on him yesterday for suggesting it was sponge :lol: I also had someone else look at it, that know their stuff.
 
Thanks Boomer! Looks like you did some research to find it. 4mm a day is about right for how fast it's moving. I wonder where it's headed. :) Thanks for helping out everyone.
 
Thank you so much, my LFS said I shouldn't try to keep sponges as they are hard to keep- now I have them for free. It looks like my anomone is eating some of it though.
 
Does anyone know much about plasmodial slime molds? I remember from basic biology that some looked just like that... and moved like that. However the ones we were given to study lived in moist terrestrial environments- not salt water. Anyone know of a slime mold that can live in salt water??? if so perhaps another possibility(but probably not). even if it is not what it is you should check them out just cuz they are cool!
returnofsid- you should have all kinds of sponges by now with the live rock you got from me. How is it doing?
Cheers,
Tracy
 
It died. I don't know why though. It turned into a reddish smear and disappeared all in the span of about 2 days. Thanks for all the help. It looked cool and I wish it would have stayed.
 

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