zoa/tunicate

[t-bone]

I have a large zoa rock that has the top covered in zoas and the bottom in what appears to be a tunicate. A thin soft clear almost gelatin feeling pad covering mostof the bottom. There are a bunch of holes in it that look like they must be the mouths.
Anyway, this tunicate?? and the zoas are colliding. There are some zoas that are touching or slightly enveloped by it. I don't know whether zoas are squeezing in on tunicate or other way around. My question is should I be concerned that the tunicate is going to overtake the zoas? Should I try to cut it back/peel some of it off?
I'll try to get a pic soon.

 

[spanko]

If it were me I would let it go for a while, keep a close eye on it and see who is winning the turf war. Then if you finally can tell who is winning go from there. This is nature and I believe we should see how it goes.
JMO

 

[t-bone]

I'll be watching closely cause, while I'd like to see what nature does I will tilt nature in favor of the zoa's if need be. Just looking for advice on how closely to be watching and if need be best method of removing offending section of tunicate.

 

[t-bone]

Finally got pic, had to turn lights back onto get so zoas are all stretched out getting the light.
Not sure how clear pic is but this shoudl show a side of the rock where the zoas are either growing into this thing or its growing around them. It's gonna be hard to tell if it creeps under the zoas since they are pretty thickly packed in on this rock.

 

[alexmir]

that isnt a tunicate, tunicates do not look like encrusting sponges. I get things like that growing on the bottom of ALL coral that come on rocks i buy. MY guess, its a type of sponge.
Just leave it, its not going to hurt the zoas, plus, theres not really much you can do unless you remove the zoas, or scrape off and kill the sponge.

 

[jaymz]

+1 for a sponge. harmless and good to have. Dont expose it to air unless you want to kill it.