Unidentified organism found under rock

Tabitha20634

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We recently had a really bad outbreak of ick and are in the process of finishing up controlling it, eradicating it, and quarantining the fish and coral that survived. While scrubbing some algae off a rock we discovered this little guy I tried using Google lens to see if it was something harmful I believe this was on a live rock we got from a reef convention
IMG_6696.jpeg
in Orlando that was taken from the Tampa area Can anyone confirm what this may be and if it is harmful thank you in advance IMG_6697.jpeg
 

Jay Hemdal

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We recently had a really bad outbreak of ick and are in the process of finishing up controlling it, eradicating it, and quarantining the fish and coral that survived. While scrubbing some algae off a rock we discovered this little guy I tried using Google lens to see if it was something harmful I believe this was on a live rock we got from a reef convention
IMG_6696.jpeg
in Orlando that was taken from the Tampa area Can anyone confirm what this may be and if it is harmful thank you in advance IMG_6697.jpeg
Interesting!

My guess would be either a colonial bryozoan or a colonial tunicate - neither are harmful.

There is also a possibility that it is a sponge, but that network pattern doesn’t match up.
 

vetteguy53081

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Sponge and need brighter light to determine type
 
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Tabitha20634

Tabitha20634

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Interesting!

My guess would be either a colonial bryozoan or a colonial tunicate - neither are harmful.

There is also a possibility that it is a sponge, but that network pattern doesn’t match up.
Thank you he’s kind of a cute little guy. He looks like a little section of brain. Just wanted to make sure it wasn’t harmful. That rock we got is pretty cool. It always has things popping up on it. I hope to get some more next year’s convention.
 

ISpeakForTheSeas

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Hard to say for sure from the pic, but that's either a sponge or a colonial tunicate; I'm leaning toward sponge, but clear, slightly brighter, white light pics would be helpful in saying for sure.

Generally, sponges with patterns like this have the ridges coming from/leading to the oscula (the larger, out-current holes) - I think I can see this in a few places, but I can't say for sure from the pics. For some examples, though (sorry, there's a lot - some are faint, some are obvious, so I thought they would show some good variation to compare with):
Edit: Ah, I remembered another good example from a while back:
 

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