Alien sphere ID please

[cwatkins]

Hi all,

I don't have any pictures of this, but a description should be okay. If not I can get pictures tonight.

For the past few months we've had this round rather shiny silver ball growing on a rock in our tank. It's now about an inch in diameter.

It has a very little bit of coraline growing on it now, but it still appears to be growing. And I think it's soft because it's now hitting a branch of a coral, and it appears to be indenting versus growing around it.

At first I thought maybe it was a snail or something, but now I'm wondering if it's an algae of some kind?

It's only one single ball. No others anywhere else.

Thanks.

P.S. If an alien or predator is going to pop out of this thing and eat me, please let me know sooner than later! That way I can suck it out with the siphon

[cale262]

Look like this?

[fishytime]

The description sounds to me like valonia( pictured above).... Nasty stuff.... Some fish and some critters may eat it.... If you try to remove it, be careful not to pop it otherwise you may have an alien invasion as the spheres contain zillions of spores

[cwatkins]

The strange thing is it's not green though. It's definitely a silver reflective colour. Should I just pop it in the siphon on my next water change?

Cale, yes it does look like that but not green.

[H22_TURBO]

Originally Posted by fishytime

The description sounds to me like valonia( pictured above).... Nasty stuff.... Some fish and some critters may eat it.... If you try to remove it, be careful not to pop it otherwise you may have an alien invasion as the spheres contain zillions of spores

every post about this stuff says not to pop it, but every fish/crab i've had that eats it pops it when munching down on it.....hmmm

I just suck them out with a hose till the hose get plugged up with them lol

[sumpfinfishe]

It simply may look silver under your lighting, if it is the nasty valonia then what i have done in the past is taken the rock out of the tank an very carefully removed them without popping them, they usually cluster so i found it's the easiest way to get rid of them.

[reefgirl189]

If it's small enough you can take a turkey baster and use it to suck off the bubble from the rock. I've used this method and it's worked well for me but every once in awhile you get a really nasty one that doesn't want to come off, or one that was missed and grew too big for the turkey baster.

[cwatkins]

Update: I sucked it up with the siphon when doing a water change yesterday. I had to pry it off the rocks but all is well. It didn't appear to have popped at all.