leather with sweepers ?

[coreb]

hi i perchised a leather toad stool and at night there are 4 long thread like filaments that come out of it and sweep the one side of my tank everything i read about them never mentioned them.
could it be an animal living in it .? has any one seen this before.

[BIGBOB]

Iv'e never heard of a leather with sweepers! It might be mucus. they shed mucus often to clean themselves. It's usually stony corals that have other animals living in them, as these animals can burrow into the underlying calcium deposits. I can't imagine an animal burrowing into a soft coral....

[coreb]

it definitely not sheding. they shoot out and unfurl and the are suck back ? if i had a digial camera i'd posted pic's .

__________
\ \ \ \ \ \ this is the closed i can do

as i said there was nothing in my reseaching that said they did this . :confused: it looks cool but

[BIGBOB]

how long and where to the strands originate from? (top/bottom of stalk or crown or polyps...?)

[coreb]

from the edge of the top and all along the right side there seem to be more now. it looks like its feeding on plankton.? oh and they seem to be from 5-8" long very fine . reminds me of thead same thickness

[BIGBOB]

strange! try tapping one of the tentacles with a.....chop stic or something to verify it's living....does it retract or react in any way?

[coreb]

retracts very fast and is sticky a little.
i fear for my clown fish

[coreb]

like i said i wish i had a digial camera . it's strange. all there stuff i read had nuthing on it.?

[dragon_slayer]

they aren't sweapers, they are hitch hickers that are sometimes embedded into toadstools. they are a parasitic worm.

kc

[Qzone]

Thought I'd check my leather toad stools just to see
12:51am CST, but there weren't any sweepers. Are the polyps from the leather extended when you see the sweepers? If not, I'd say you've got a hitch-hiker living in the coral. Any type of opening that the sweepers are coming from?

[BIGBOB]

If they're a paracitic worm, i'd get that toadstool out of there!

[dragon_slayer]

why remove it? they dont harm a thing and just filter feed. they use the toadstool as a host, they do not cause any harm to it.

and FWIW they will extend at night regardless of if the leather has its polyps extended or not.

kc

[BIGBOB]

ohh sry...i was unaware that they caused no harm! but will they spread to all the other leathers too? one would think so. You wouldn't want that....i mean they'd get to be like aiptasia if they spread....just growing everywhere. dragon: Do the tentacles sting?

[dragon_slayer]

they do not spread, they are like the feather hand worms in acros, they just host in the corals and do not propagate in captivity (due to larval development i'd guess).

they do not sting, they are just sticky tenticals that capture particals in the water and feed off them. they help clean your water. i'v seen a few that were 10" or better when fully extended out.

they also are a good indication that the coral was a wild harvested coral and not a aquacultured one (unless it was fragged off).

kc

[coreb]

didn't think the leather had sweeper. they look cool. guess i got to feed them now. thanks for all the input :) i am sorry to hear it maybe wild caught.