Hitchhiker ID, what to do?

[drillbitfocker]

I'm new to this hobby and I encountered these on my newly bought corals.

One lookin like feather potruding from torch coral, and the other one with a 2 antenna.

Are these reef safe? What should I do?

Thanks

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

The one that looks like a feather is probably a barnacle (possibly a coral-boring one), but I can't eliminate the possibility of it being a feather duster worm from the pics:

If it fans out then rakes in like fingers closing into a fist, then it's a barnacle. If it just sends out the little crown of feathery appendages and basically sits with them fanned out in a circle, it's a feather duster worm. Either way, it's a harmless filter feeder.

Assuming it sends out a little clump of feathery appendages that fan out like a rake, then close in like fingers closing into a fist, I'd guess that's a coral-boring barnacle.

They're usually not a problem, but they do generally cause a little, dead/deformed patch around where they're burrowed in (and that patch tends to grow as the barnacle does). It being that close to the mouth is a bit concerning to me, but I haven't seen it on enough LPS like this to know if it's an issue.

If you want to get rid of it, I'd imagine you would need to either crush it in its burrow or carefully inject something into it that would kill it - either way, you'd really want to be careful with it being in the coral.

The one with two antennae (called palps in this case) is a Spionid worm - I'd get rid of that one if you can:

If they’re inside the coral, then they’re Coral-boring Spionid Worms:

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Those are boring spionids - not a problem in small numbers, but a big problem if they start boring through corals and/or if the population gets out of hand.

Interceptor, Ivermectin, & Coral Boring Spionid Worms.

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[drillbitfocker]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

The one that looks like a feather is probably a barnacle (possibly a coral-boring one), but I can't eliminate the possibility of it being a feather duster worm from the pics:


The one with two antennae (called palps in this case) is a Spionid worm - I'd get rid of that one if you can:

Thanks! Just ordered ivermectin. I'll try it on my hammer torch with spionid worm.