I don’t know what’s growing on my rocks

[PeterC2904]

So I don’t know if anyone is able to see cleary what they are in the pictures, but I’ve had these growing on my rocks for quite some time now and I’ve had no idea what they are. They look like tiny flowers and even resemble tiny firework polyps. If anyone knows what these are or at least had an idea please let me know.

 

[reefbliss2344]

Any chance you can turn up the white light or use a 5000k filter? It looks like a zoa colony. I attached a colony in my tanks taken with a filter. Does it look like these?

 

[DrkNMighty]

Agree that white light would help. First thought is hydroids but hard to tell.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

If anyone knows what these are or at least had an idea please let me know.

They're an invasive octocoral (soft coral) - some that can look like this include Clove Polyps, Sympodium, Sarcothelia, or Anthelia (I don't know how to tell them apart at this point, unfortunately).

Sympodium is known to be fine (i.e. not invasive) as it's relatively slow growing and easy to contain. Some of the others are fine, but certain kinds of Clove Polyps, Sarcothelia, and Anthelia are know to extremely invasive:

Was going to say, it looks like Blue Clove Polyps to me (though I can't see if the polyps have the little branches shooting off in the pictures) - they're noted for being incredibly invasive. Like, there are multiple articles warning people against them and some people consider tearing down the tank to get rid of them, invasive.

The only solutions I've heard for blue clove polyps aren't reef safe (they might kill off other things in the tank), but the most common treatment I've heard is Fenbendazole. Someone else used Lugol's Iodine, but they also lost some corals from that. Some people say kalk paste or super glue may work, but I haven't seen many people reporting success with it. The links below may help:

Invasive purple clove polyps

Does anyone know how to kill off invasive clove polyps? They’re starting to spread and envelop my acans and I don’t want them swallowing my garden.

www.reef2reef.com

Eliminating Blue Clove Polyps with Fenbendazole

A few years ago, I purchased a rock that had some beautiful Space Monster zoas on it. It also had some Blue Clove Polyp on it as well. I saw the BCP, I knew it was there, I really didn't worry about it at all because I had no idea what it could become. Fast forward....its now everywhere. Its...

www.reef2reef.com

I can't find the post, but I recently read someone saying they had a particularly invasive brown strain of clove polyps that survived the fenbendazole treatment too.

 

[PeterC2904]

No it doesn’t look like those, these started growing before I added zoas to my tank.

Any chance you can turn up the white light or use a 5000k filter? It looks like a zoa colony. I attached a colony in my tanks taken with a filter. Does it look like these?