two green things: ID please!

[krullulon]

Does anyone know what the heck these guys are?

First: this is a tiny green disc, about 3mm diameter with a white center, sometimes appears to have a short stalk and is popping-up all over the side of some rocks -- it looks a bit like the pictures of Penicillus pyriformis, but I don't know how big P. Pyriformis is:

this one looks like algae, but is a hollow, translucent green tube -- i thought maybe some kind of tunicate? it didn't look like any of the algae pics i was able to find:

Any ideas?? Thanks!

JP

 

[Anonymous]

First pic Is Halimeda it a acalcerous macro algea that grow very fast. Second pic is.... I have no clue

 

[Anonymous]

Scratch the Halimed on the first pic It could be Razor Caulerpa Which plant am I trying to identify there are like threee in the first pic

 

[krullulon]

i just put a smaller box around it... it's the small circle.

i don't think it's halimeda or razor caulerpa -- it grows only as a single circle, sometimes no visible little stalk and sometimes a tiny visible stalk. it doesn't vine, and appears to always be about 3mm in diameter...

thanks!

 

[Anonymous]

The first large box looks like C. racemosa to me. The smaller one....? Hard to say.
Second pic looks like the ripped off stem of Caulerpa (the thick clear thing on the right) along with some hair algae. If you give it a few weeks you might be able to see what grows out of it.

 

[krullulon]

thanks for the reply!

the second picture is interesting stuff -- my snails have made short work of the hair algae, but they've left all of the mystery stuff. as it gets bigger, the "tubes" increase in diameter but it stays translucent and is very insubstantial when i remove it from the water.

the first pic is the same thing in the big box and small box, just different views. it really looks exactly like a little green daisy with a white center that grows on a tiny stem -- just a single "head" and a single "stem", and never gets any bigger than 3mm long or so. there's a ton of them popping up, but they seem to be solo little critters/plants.

i'll give it a few weeks and see what happens... 8)

 

[John_Brandt]

The "daisies" are Polyphysa. The ribbon-like tubes are Enteromorpha.

 

[krullulon]

The "daisies" are Polyphysa. The ribbon-like tubes are Enteromorpha.

Right on, thanks John! I've been reading about both...

Polyphysa is especially cool -- hopefully it's not a pest, because I really enjoy it! It's strange and ancient and cool.

Just read that Enteromorpha is a "pioneer species" that appears frequently after a major disturbance -- I'm guessing that curing my live rock and cycling my tank would count. I like it considerably less than Polyphysa, so I think it's going the way of the dodo. 8)

JP