New Acro from Frag Swap

[debdp]

Okay this is really cool... Got this pretty acro from Mark at the frag swap. But watching it I noticed something moving in and out from the frag. So I watched more closely and there are these unique looking sort of feather dusters that seem to have taken over the polyp, like where the tentacles would come out. But unlike feather dusters they don't stay out. They come out, wave in the current and then fold up back into the hole and then open and come back out every couple seconds. I did see this on a video but I can't remember what exactly it was I thought it was some sort of crab... might've been on Blue Planet. Anyway there's five of them that I've seen. Anybody seen this before? I guess what I'm also wondering is how did they take over the polyp? You can see the other polyps have tentacles peeking out, but five of them have these feathery things and no tentacles. I put arrows where they are but they're so tiny and fine it's still hard to see.

 

[Ashlar]

Looks like barnacles. http://rowelab.com/fish/barnacle.mov (look at the center of the torch).

 

[debdp]

Yep... but how did it get inside where the polyp is supposed to be? I wouldn't think they're predatory. Or could they both reside in the same hole. The acro is still new to its home so could the polyps be sharing the hole and just not opening yet?

 

[Ashlar]

The acro will grow around the barnacle. Cool, no?

 

[debdp]

@Ashlar wrote:

Hmm cool yes and no. They're neat to watch. But like everything else I'm sure they'll multiply and pop up somewhere else.

Thanks for the info.

 

[hegi]

barnacles are quite neat. I've always seen them in encrusting monti frags and especially LPS. I've had a few and a galaxia that had a couple. They're fun to watch and seem to be harmless to their coral host IME.

 

[Ashlar]

*nod* Never heard of them reproducing- it's usually a challenge to keep them alive.

 

[hegi]

yeah I've never noticed they lived much longer than a year even though I feed a pretty wide variety of microfoods.

 

[Jeff]

perhaps these are barnicles in their native shell that got encrusted by the coral skin?

 

[Wes]

@DheereCrossing wrote:

most likely, almost certainly but you never know

 

[Ashlar]

Actually, there are a couple of species of barnacle that don't have a hard shell, they produce a thin tube that corals grow around. They're often found in Euphylia sp. corals (frogspawn, torch, hammer, etc.)

 

[aentrop]

Reviving an old thread...

I have a barnacle living on one of the heads of my torch... Has been there for about 6 months...

I spoke to one person who had a colony of branching hammer. He made 2 frags each containing 3 heads, and 1 of them had a barnacle. He said after 1 year the frag without the barnacle had grown to about 15 heads, while the frag with the barnacle had only grown to 6 heads.

Anyone else have any experiences with barnacles?
From what I can tell if that barnacles significantly hinder coral growth...
How do you kill them? Squirt some Aptasia-X in their hole?

 

[debdp]

@aentrop wrote:

No experience but I'm watching these. The acro is slowly growing toward the opening with the barnacles, but doesn't seem to be hindering the growth of the acro. Now the milli that latched onto this poor little guy created a bit of a set back

 

[debdp]

It's been what almost a year now and I still have this little guy. It's definitley a super duper slow grower in my tank. It actually hasn't grown at all, but it hasn't RTNd either. The barnacle is still there,, you can see. You an also see it has polyp extension. Algae has taken over the part that the Millepora fried. I moved it to get a good picture but otherwise I just leave it at the top in the back. I figure the less I mess with it the less chance there is of losing it entirely.