brown and red hard tubes

[motownmego]

i posted this in the pest forum but know one responded so here goes

i have these brown and red hard tubes growing on stuff i had a few on my dersa and could barely pry it off now i notices them on the live rock as well nothing is sticking out of them like feather duster and they are very hard to break off any ideas on what they could be?

[hansmatt]

I've got a few of those too...calcarious shells, some of them swirl others poke up 1cm or so...can't help you with ID, but I've not noticed anything harmful about them.

[motownmego]

ok cause i gotem all over and i wanna get rid of em but good to know there not harmful thanks

[tangmang23]

completely harmless. there was a thread on reefcentral with an ID on them. one would guess i dont remember the name of them, well.....one would be right. Sorry ill try and find the thread, but i dont even remember were it was on the site lol.

[jumpman420]

I use a stick or razor to cut/smash them off

[firsthesitation]

I dont think i'd recomment cutting them or smashing them off. You can potentially do more harm to the clam than good.

[jumpman420]

I would say on the clam that you should try to remove it. I would recommend a razor blade. These tube worm thingers actually inbed themselves into the host that they are on. They tend to grow on my frag plugs and when I cut them off they are into the frag plug 1/16" or so. You can try to just scrape them off, but often they retreat into the host vs. their tubes. Most times they are harmless but I try to remove the ones in/on my corals.

[motownmego]

ok thanks

[jumpman420]

You will see the whitish colored worm inside the tube yet if you didn't cut deep enough. You don't have to cut any more than the small area of the worm on the shell, but you will see if you need to go deeper.

Let us know how it goes...

[motownmego]

i pop d a few off the clams the are really on there didnt c and worm or any thing tho and they werent into the clams either

[jumpman420]

Good good. If any of it is still alive on there, given its not embedded at all, they will reappear in a short amount of time probably...