It's ALIVE!

[Melanie]

I bought a gorgeous colony of purple zoas. I didn't notice the red "tubes" on the rock until they opened and closed! Nothing comes out in the day or night and they look hollow. But they DO open and close periodically.

What is it??

(Top right of the photo is the colony on the rock.)

Close up macro. (Diameter about the same as a pencil.)

If you know what it is, can you tell me what kind of care it needs? For some reason I think it's non-photosynthetic (like a sun coral).

 

[Dentoid]

It looks like some kind of tunicate. Is this the fully open appearance? Are there tenticles that come out of it?

 

[Melanie]

Nothing comes out of it. No tentacles day or night. That is the open look except the one on the right is starting to close. Now I have to google tunicates and see what they need.

 

[Melanie]

Google done. How exactly am I supposed to have live plankton in my tank? Can I buy this stuff?

 

[Dentoid]

Tunicates are difficult to keep, if that is what it is? Our tanks just don't support their nutritional needs or supplying them the proper nutrition is laborious and outside the envelope for all but expert hobbyists. I had many of them when my LR was new, but they have all perished. Mine were yellow and looked much like your red ones.

 

[ScubaDrew]

Hey Mel - I've got some orange and yellow truncate in my tank. I believe it is slowly thinning out though. I was dosing DT's photo but in dosage high enough to make my tree sponges and truncates seem happy the tank would break out in algae...

 

[kathywithbirds]

I tried reefbugs... directions lead me to picture a kind of seamonkeys situation. It's dried eggs of some sort of micro critter that's good for them to eat, eggs or hatched or grown or whatever. I have like 4 tunicates, orange, and they're growing.

 

[BigAl07]

Just keep in mind that trying to feed your tunicates you're running a BIG risk of causing the algae bloom ScubaDrew was talking about. Either way I think it's better to just keep your tank healthy and stable and if the tunicates make it so be it.

Melanie I want some of those long tentacle yellow polyps in that picture. I have some similar to those but their tentacles aren't nearly that long.

 

[Melanie]

Yeah, I will probably just keep doing what I'm doing then. Hopefully they'll make it.

Al, you should look at my chronicle and see how much they've grown in the past few months! They should be ready for fragging in just a couple of months!

 

[BigAl07]

Al, you should look at my chronicle and see how much they've grown in the past few months! They should be ready for fragging in just a couple of months!

Dibbs on frag #1 Seriously!!