White Wormies

[eprouve]

Any ideas what this could be? They wriggle. Should I panic? I also noticed some colourless ones which are not so curled up on the macroalgae in the refugium.

I removed the missing attachment. - AT

Edited February 5, 2003 by Achilles Tang

[hongqixian]

I can't se your pic. Probably amphipods, harmless scavenging crustaceans. Check them out at www.ipsf.com .

[eprouve]

Hmmm... i saw the pic appear... anyway here it is again.

[Achilles Tang]

I don't think they are worms.

Mushrooms are known to shrink and spew out white stringy strands which are then retracted back... I think it's a normal reaction to something they don't like. Not sure if it is due to excessive lights exposure causing excess zoox to be expelled.

If you are using MHs, you should put them in shadier areas.

AT

[bawater]

i've never seen it on mushrooms before(come to think of it i've never seen a mushroom die ) but i've seen the local brown bubble tip anemones do it just before it dies,picked it up & it wasn't worms(seen it happen twice). could have been its stomach but too slimy for me to attempt amatuer atopsy & answer my curiosity.

[Achilles Tang]

Unlike anemones... these strands come out from other places, not just the mouth!

I get goosebumps from seeing those... dun ask me why.... it just looks so icky to me... some of these stringy stuff can be rather long... yeurggh!

[newdamsel]

The mushrooms that i have spews these white strands once in a while when i move the mushrooms about, accidentally banging them against the rocks... after a while it retracts back into the mushrooms and they are all well again... I guess its nuthing really.. They will be back in bloom in no time

[eprouve]

Most of them have disappeared. I assume they retracted somewhere

[DragonGoby]

Can it be mushroom lao sai?

I get black stringy stuff spewing from the mouths of my Turbinaria too, but I think it's probably waste since t gets washed off. Same goes for zoanthids.