New head on frogspawn coral: cause for concern?

[otter9]

Hello everyone,

I've been keeping an eye on my frogspawn over the past couple of nights, and I've started to notice something unusual. At first, it was barely visible, but now it's becoming more noticeable - something's starting to protrude from one of the heads.

I'm not sure if this is a normal development or if I should be taking action.

(sorry for the poor image quality)

[otter9]

I'm getting a bit anxious about this - has anyone else ever seen something like this with their frogspawn?

[finnix25]

Unfortunately the image isn't clear enough for me to make out what's going on. I'd recommend checking out brown jelly disease to rule that out - it's always better to be safe than sorry. If you suspect it might be a tube worm or sponge, I've found chucks addiction to be a great resource for identifying hitchhikers. Hopefully this helps you get to the bottom of it.

[otter9]

I managed to catch the little guy in action this evening - it's got these feather duster-like sweepers that keep coming out and retracting every couple of seconds. After digging around, I found out it's actually a barnacle.

I had seeded some pods about a month ago to get them to reproduce quickly before introducing a mandarin, but it looks like they've taken over my tank since there's nothing to eat them. The water clarity is almost hazy during the day because of all the copepods floating around the column and on the glass. I'm guessing the barnacle is feeding on them.

[lumenox]

Honestly, your coral doesn't look too great, did you try dipping it?

[otter9]

Honestly, your coral doesn't look too great, did you try dipping it?

That photo was taken at night, about an hour after the lights went out. The coral's actually doing great, I just caught it as it was contracting for the evening under the Kessil's dusk setting.

[Finleyt]

that pic was kinda weird though. might've just been how it looks at night when it's all contracted. sounds like it's doing alright tho