My Funny Picture

Something Very Weird is in my Salt Water Fish Tank!?

Does anyone know what these things are!? They have about 6 tentacle and are fairly small. I saw that there is about five of them, but there could be more. So are they deadly, poisonous, and will they kill any of my fish or coral? I took some pictures and it looks like they were mating. But these creatures are just weird!! (Please see pictures) http://www.flickr.com/photos/47805168@N02/?saved=1 Please help! And thanks. I drew a picture of what these things look like. They have six legs that are covered with prickly spiny things. It looked like they were mating. If you look at the picture you can see there is white stuff coming from them. Plus there was more than one set of these things doing the same thing at the same time in a different location. http://www.flickr.com/photos/47805168@N02/?saved=1

Public Comments

1. yeah i think its naturel but remove them safely incase p.s. wear gloves incase
2. EDIT: Excellent drawing! And what you saw may have been mating... but it may have been pooping. They are great to have in your tank, so hope they're breeding! EDIT: Rav1n, you're right! I didn't see it until you said it. Once you mentioned them, I noticed the little hex body under the tentacles. Can you get any closer pics? Or a really good description? It could be all kinds of stuff. Vermetid snail, spaghetti worm, spionid, chaetopterids, serpulids, hydrozoan... anything. Might be harmful, but probably not. Check out this site, it's the best: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/mardisindex.htm Try to find out what it is before you pull it out. If you can't figure it out, though, yank it to be safe. Personally, I hate vermetid snails. They're just gross. But they're not harmful, as long as they don't go nuts breeding. Spagetti worms gross me out too. But some of these nasty little critters are filter feeders, which is good for the tank. They don't look like aiptasia to me... aiptasia would have a thicker base with the tentacles coming out of the top, and the tentacles would look more frilly... like this: http://www.melevsreef.com/id/aiptasia2.jpg
3. It's just some plant growing on your coral, it's totally nature and normal.
4. looks like aptasia,they come in with live rock.do not pull them out as they will break into and spread like wildfire.use a syringe and target them with aptasia rid it works really well and fast too. good luck.they sting corals and are a nuisance.
5. Actually it looks like tiny little serpent/brittle stars to me. In fact I am almost positive they are tiny little stars. Looking closely it appears that in the first picture there is one even out and about on the tip of the rock. They are in the rocks and their "legs" are out to catch passing food. They eat leftover foods and detritus and are not harmful.