ID needed - what is this?
 

Hello,

I am cycling my new tank and I noticed these spots on this piece of dead coral. Can someone tell me what they think these red spots are? When I first put all of this live rock in, it came with a few pieces of dead coral like this one. I am sure it didn't have those spots on it. Any help would be appreciated, whether it be good news or bad!

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...k/DSC_8167.jpg

Looks like little sponges but could be wrong. I have seen these on some of my live rock when the tank was new too.

All safe :)

could also be foraminiferans, also good :)

Both very plausible IDs, also possibly coraline algae. Any way to take a closer photo?

Sent from my HTC Desire HD using Tapatalk 2

Apparently I am the worst photographer in the history of aquaculture. My crappy old Nikon and I were only able to zoom in a bit further, so all I could really do was go to manual focus and then crop the photo. Here is my attempt to make this more visible:

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...nk/reddots.jpg

I lied, that zoomed photo confuses me more :razz:.

Nothing to worry about though, all natural in a reef tank and its not going to hurt anything.

Awesome, thanks for the peace of mind!

They are small tube worms , i have them in my display . When they die the shells stay that color forever and are very hard so they stay on stuf for a long time . Those are probably dead ones .

Oh, ok. Some of the spots are getting larger every day so I was curious. I have some feather duster worms that seem to have magically appeared as well. Considering this "live" rock was left outside in buckets in Calgary from May until October I am pretty impressed that anything is alive at all.

They are vermatid snails and I would get rid of them ASAP they will become a plague over time. I have you fed the tank yet? They will send a mucous net to catch any food or debris.