Leather Toadstool at Night

[dborne3]

I have a question about my toadstool - last night i was looking in my tank and saw two things pointing up from my toadstool. When i looked closer at it - it looked like a flap of skin with rreeeaaallllyy long hairlike tentacles floating towards the top of the tank. The toadstool itself is about 4 inches, but the tentacles were a good 2 feet long.
Im guessing this is a harmless feeding technique for the toadstool but i just want someone elses input on this.
Thanks

 

[mx#28]

Originally Posted by dborne3
http:///forum/post/2613894
I have a question about my toadstool - last night i was looking in my tank and saw two things pointing up from my toadstool. When i looked closer at it - it looked like a flap of skin with rreeeaaallllyy long hairlike tentacles floating towards the top of the tank. The toadstool itself is about 4 inches, but the tentacles were a good 2 feet long.
Im guessing this is a harmless feeding technique for the toadstool but i just want someone elses input on this.
Thanks
Sounds like it's just shedding? Any chance you could take a photo when it happens?

 

[dborne3]

Highly unlikely... this stringy looking stuff is Very thin and would not show up on my camera. I looked up shedding on the toadstools and its not that.
I have attempted to draw what it looks like on paint - it looks stupid but its the best i can do since i cant get a picture of it. Its the blue featherlike things coming off the top.

 

[mx#28]

Do you have any feathery caulerpa in the tank or in a refugium? Could it have been any other plant or algea stuck on the coral?
Sarcophytons do not have 2 foot long feeding tentacles, so either something was on it or it was shedding. When they shed, the have a very thin and stringy mucous coat that drifts off, but that doesn't seem to match the feathery depiction in your drawing.
Hmmm...

 

[dborne3]

Well i have no caulerpa and i dont have a refugium. It looked like it was part of the coral - pretty sure in fact. Maybe it was shedding

...
I have only seen this last night so the only thing i can do is get home and check again tonight and get a better look at it. Keep u updated tomorrow - thanks for helping

 

[mx#28]

Here's a photo of a shedding leather I nabbed online. Any resemblence to what you saw? If not, do please try to get a good photo - it will be very helpful.

 

[dborne3]

Well the only thing that is similar is the part that is attached to the toadstool - i tried circleing it in my drawn pic. It looked like a flap of skin then the long feathlike tentacle was attached to that flap.
In the pic u have - it looks much thicker than what i had seen.
I will try my best to get a pic tonight.

 

[mx#28]

Do a search for the Dendronotid nudibranches. They are soft coral eating nudibranches that have a feathery appearance, although 2 feet would be 2 or 3 times larger than I've ever heard of them getting. It's worth a shot, though.

 

[dborne3]

Weird - i just recently posted a pic of one of these guys because i had found one in my tank about two weeks ago. I caught it and got rid of him. I'm pretty sure that what im talking about with the toadstool isnt another one. I will be on alert for more of them tonight.

 

[dborne3]

Well i have been watching the toadstool all night and it has those two things coming out from behind it. I have a few pics - really hard to get something that is clear and so small. Im starting to believe that it isnt actually from the toadstool but these two very small things that are on the backside of it. They look almost like very small shrimp. Definitely not shedding either.
Anyway here are some pics = i circled where the stringy thing is at.

 

[mx#28]

I'm having some trouble with the picture quality, but google "vermetid snails" and click the first result.

 

[reefkprz]

I would say probably some form of polycheate worm has made a home inside the leather and comes out to filter feed at night, are there any holes at the base of theose strings?

 

[dborne3]

Originally Posted by MX#28
http:///forum/post/2614828
I'm having some trouble with the picture quality, but google "vermetid snails" and click the first result.
Well this was one of my guesses too - but i have seen these before and its definitely not these.
This string has a distinct single line with featherlike extensions coming off both sides (like what i had drawn in blue with Paint)

 

[dborne3]

Originally Posted by reefkprZ
http:///forum/post/2614981
I would say probably some form of polycheate worm has made a home inside the leather and comes out to filter feed at night, are there any holes at the base of theose strings?
I was able to look this morning before work and saw what looks like some sort of worm or slugish type thing on the toadstool. It looks like a snail without a shell and it has this tentacle/string coming from its head, moving it throughout the water column. So im pretty sure that its some sort of bug that is just made a home on the toadstools backside.
I did get a slightly better pic this morning but wasnt able to put it up here yet. I did try circling one of these things on one of the previous pics i posted and i drew what it looks like. (i know my pics are bad and drawings even worse - sorry

)
pic in next post

 

[dborne3]

here it is

 

[dborne3]

Update - When i was messing with my tank yesterday, i found out that there is some sort of worm that is burried in the toadstool and comes out at night to feed. It has a whitish color and is completely burried until night.
Thanks for helping