white bubbly blobbish thingy

[plasma]

Anyone have any idea of what this is? I keep having these little things show up in tank after a night and they hang out for a while and disappear.

Photo's located at http://www.2k911.com/jharper/aqua/bubble.htm

Thanks in advance for your time!!

Jay H.

[steve1s]

You see it at night or rather find it in the morning?

Reason I ask, is many fish will encase themselves in these cacoons at night. It protects their scent from night predators. Very common in wrasses, parrots and some others...

Cheers
Steve

[RazerCorals]

Hmm do you have any crabs on shrimp. It doesn't really look like a molting of a shrimp, but perhaps the part of a hermit with the front claws removed.

[phistio]

actually your picture here looks a lot like a moon jellyfish...

http://www.2k911.com/jharper/aqua/bubble/2.jpg

Aurelia's are not considered to be reef safe, as well they are toxic to humans. they are filter feeders that thrive on Zooplankton.

[plasma]

I typically find them in the morning. Not too often either, just every few weeks, sometimes a few within a week. They are attached to the sand, usually 1 or 2 of them and they just hang out until they waste away.

I have no shrimp, only a few hermits, some snails, 2 damsels, 1 coral bueaty, some softies and shrooms and a scooter blenny.

I have also seen those in there before I added the hermits and the coral beauty, so I dunnnno.....

[phistio]

here are a few links...

http://www.assateague.com/jelly.html
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/aurelia/a._aurita.html

the one thing that dissuades me is that you say they are immobile for long periods at a time...so i dunno. the thing that tipped me off though was the appearance of what looked to be gonads in the middle.

[plasma]

I dont think that it's anything alive. It will just sit in the same spot for about 4 days, after that, it's really broken apart and kinda becomes a jellyish stringy thingy that eventually just fades and slimes away.

For sure seems like a leftover something from something else. I'm really glad though that I got an excellent pic of one. I finally figured out how to make my camera take good pictures!!