What is this and how can we get rid of it?

[blenny90]

We have several of these things in our tanks. They look like very small calcerous tubes like a feather duster would be in. But they aren't feather dusters. They put out these stringy filament type strings and it appears that they are stinging our corals. We had to move a small toadstool leather and now they are stinging our Anthelia.

It's in the center of the picture below and you can see the stringy stuff floating upwards.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank You

[ellamaeruth]

it is another type of tube worm. I can't find my Calfo Invert book right now to tell you the name, but they are harmless.

[Moreta]

It's harmless, it's not stinging your coral, only producing a mucus net to catch minute edible stuff.

[blenny90]

Is it possible the mucus could be irritating the corals? They are far enough away from each other at this point, that I don't know what else could be causing it.

There is a Fox Coral nearby both where the toadstool was and the Anthelia. Do they put out sweeper tentacles?

[ellamaeruth]

stinging, no. irritating, yes.

[romunov]

It's a vermetid worm. Do a search on this forum or;
Snails That Worm Their Way Into Tanks

[Paintbug]

Originally posted by romunov
It's a vermetid worm. Do a search on this forum or;
Snails That Worm Their Way Into Tanks

agreed!

[blenny90]

romunov - thank you for the link. Very interesting article. Do it sounds like if there are just a few of these, they are okay, but can get invasive, so best to remove them.

Also noted at the bottom of the article, it states that they can irritate some corals, so that's probably the case with our toadstool and the anthelia/

Thank you again!