Critter help please

[OneMerissa]

Hey all can you tell me mayhaps what these are? I hope harmless little filter feeders. They retract when annoyed.
Thanks!!
OneMerissa

 

[TnFishwater98]

Is it moving? I would need clearer pics but possibly snail eggs? What kind of snails do you have?

 

[TnFishwater98]

Or nubibranch eggs… Are you talking about yellow or red?

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Tunicates!!

@ISpeakForTheSeas

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

View attachment 3033517
Or nubibranch eggs… Are you talking about yellow or red?

The yellow circled things look to me like they may be feather dusters, but I’m not sure. The red circled things are definitely colonial tunicates though.

OP, the colonial tunicates are harmless filter feeders, but some species can spread quickly. So, if you’re concerned that you may end up with a ton of these in your tank, you may want to see if you can figure out how to isolate them to a single rock or something so you can have an easier time controlling any spread.

 

[TnFishwater98]

*Agree about feather dusters, I don’t know about colonial tunicates
Below pics of feather dusters and other things that might reach out

 

[OneMerissa]

No not moving. I’ve got

View attachment 3033517
Or nubibranch eggs… Are you talking about yellow or red?

the red, please. I belive the yellow are feather duster worms

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Haha, yeah sorry - that's part of why I threw in the TLDR at the bottom there. Here are some photos of colonial tunicates with similar body structure (and some with - from what I can tell - similar coloration) to help decide if it is a colonial tunicate:
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(The two above images are from here: https://www.mdpi.com/1424-2818/14/11/977 )

And the link below has a bunch more pics (some are different colonial tunicates like above, some are solitary tunicates):

Ascideacea

www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu

OneMerissa, the quote above has a bunch of different colonial tunicates you can look at, but the ones I’d suggest looking up pics of are Golden Star Tunicates (Botryllus schlosseri), as those look quite similar to these.

They’re definitely pretty - they look like Golden Star Tunicates, Botryllus schlosseri, to me (the “normal” color for these is brown outside, tan inside, so OP, yours are kind of fun being flipped from the norm; that said, they come in a wide range of colors, including deep reds, oranges, and yellows in nature).

A beautiful species, and one that you can find for sale if you know where to look - but, they can be pretty invasive (see the link below - they have the same color tunicates even), so you may need to be prepared to trim them back regularly if you don’t want too many of them in your tank. Other than their rapid spreading, though, they’re harmless, pretty filter feeders.

Tunicates

So I have these tunicates in both of my 150s and I’m pretty sure I’ve narrowed down the source, but I’m wondering if anyone else has experience with this kind of tunicate. Will they eventually die off? It doesn’t seem like they sting corals to me, but has anyone experienced that? They are...

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