Need ID for some jelly like thing

[CKS]

Something new appeared in my tank this morning.. It looks fragile and jelly-like.

Inside the dome shaped jelly holds many tiny thingy that looks like brineshrimp eggs.

Any idea what that is?

[CKS]

another pic

[BlueTerror]

it looks alien

[CKS]

I hope i get it identified b 4 my urchin claws over it!!

[KingFish]

Looks like a spawn man..... none of your fish tried to gobble it yet?

Maybe some other guys can try to identify it

[CKS]

hm... its still there .. not eaten 'yet'

Ive 3 fishes in that small tank .. none of them have shown interest in it

[Achilles Tang]

Whoa!

What is that?? I can't help you ID it without a side profile... and a description..

Does it move? Does it have a head? Feelers? Eyes? How big izzit?

[CKS]

Em.. doesnt move on its own .. it sways in direction current is bringing it

will turn off powerhead and see...

cant seems to locate head/eyes..etc

scale it to other stuff in the tank shown in the pic

its sitting on the sand .. middle in the pic

thats how big it is

[Achilles Tang]

I admit I am stumped.

No idea whatsoever what it is... it could be some strange form of sea slug, it could be a very large egg mass... maybe you can go to reef central and seek opinions from the gurus there...

[CKS]

hehe yea .. will post on RC on monday

i think the good doc is on leave today.

[CKS]

And so Dr Ron has replied..

"I'll bet you probably want me to tell you, too.

It is the egg mass of a tube-dwelling polychaete or "bristle" worm. The jelly will dissolve in a day or two releasing a lot of small larvae into the water of your tank. Generally, such larvae get eaten by corals and other zooplankton predators. Some may survive to help maintain the population of the worms."

Great .. this is the 2nd time this thing happened actually

didnt have a cam on the 1st occurrence

[Tanzy]

Wonder if you could frag that to help populate the DSB of some new tanks.

[CKS]

well it dissovled already.

hoping that most larvae managed to get to worm-hood.

[newdamsel]

eekss.. thats gross what a big sack of larvae~!!!!

one hell of a queen mother bristleworm to be able to lay such a big brood of eggs~!!

[anakjoh]

I could see many tiny tube worms all over my LR - some are like the 6 in. feather duster worms I have. Will they grow big just like that one all over the place?

[CKS]

anakjoh: em.. im not sure about the birth cycle of featherduster

ive seen mine producing milky stuff .. what happened next i dont know... the next thing i remember ive many tiny featherduster

newdamsel: u bet! ive seen really big one clawing across my tank

[CKS]

My bristle worm gave birth yet again!!

Hmm... they've been h0rny lately .. they created their previous egg mass just 8 days ago