Clear-White mass covering rock

[MadamePoisson]

I have a mass that is slowing growing/covering a pretty purple figi rock. I first noticed it almost 2 months ago. It is not totally transparent, yet not truly white either. There are several clear things standing up on/growing up from the mass. I thought maybe sponges or tunicates; however, all of the pics I have seen look like individuals...not individuals on a mass. What the heck is it? Thanks for helping!

 

[John_Brandt]

You are probably going to have to provide a photo for this one.

 

[MadamePoisson]

Yea! I FINALLY uploaded a pic! It is obviously still growing strong! Anyone know what it is?

 

[John_Brandt]

It does look like sponge.

If you could take a closer and focused photo we might be able to say more about it.

 

[MadamePoisson]

Thanks for the quick reply John! I took some pretty good pics, but they were too large...more than 256K. Consequently, I couldn't upload them to this message boad. So I took my camera setting down to the "economy" setting and the smallest resolution. That pic is the one that FINALLY went! This new camera is so much nicer than my old one; however, I am really frustrated with the whole "file is too big thing"! Any ideas on how I can take a better pic that will be sharp...and be able to be uploaded to this sight? Thanks for any ideas!

 

[hdtran]

Madame,

I assume you are using a Windows-based machine. Take your picture in hi-res, then, use Irfanview (or other free jpeg resizer) to crop and/or resize it to a smaller pixel size (horizontalxvertical). Something like 800x600 works well here.

A good trick is to take the sharpest picture you can, then, crop it to size (rather than repixel-size). That way, you 'zoom' to your desired feature.

I've had pretty good luck with that (with the exception that my camera focuses on what it likes, not what I like).

 

[Anonymous]

Madm!
I avoid the file size restrictions by posting my pix off a URL on my server. If you have any web space (there are lots of free hosts, but check to see if they allow remote linking of images), it's easy to post it here.

 

[MadamePoisson]

Thanks a bunch HDTRAN an HWARANG! Hopefully I will be successful in posting more pics!

 

[MadamePoisson]

By the way, do you think the blue masses are part of the sponge? They are seen in the last pic I posted...on the one side of the rock...towards the under/lower side.

 

[hdtran]

Well, I'm not the eminent John Brandt, but I can say that the purple stuff is almost certainly coralline algae, and the blue stuff is almost certainly an encrusting sponge or tunicate (more likely sponge, but my biology knowledge is generallly limited to the sex life of bacteria).

Nice pictures, though!

 

[John_Brandt]

Yes, the whitish frilly mass is sponge. And so is the blue. If it appears that the two masses are continuous then it is probably a single species colony.

 

[MadamePoisson]

Awesome! Thanks so much!