Looks like mini hornwort. Edit: Caulerpa verticillata! Dang.

[Tired]

Looks like a tiny hornwort plant, maybe a quarter inch across. Any idea what it is? I'm hoping it's not something too invasive, I like the shape. 

 

Edit: it looks exactly like this stuff. Except this is freshwater, so it's not this.

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

Could you possibly get a better picture? Right now I’m leaning towards a rock flower nem or lepto maybe?

[Tired]

It's very much not any form of animal. I can't get a better pic because it's tiny, but it literally looks just like tiny sprouts of this stuff. Which it can't be, because hornwort is freshwater.

 

[Jozefs a lizard]

some algae

hermitcrabs will eat it

[Tired]

Well, yes, it's a macroalgae, and some hermits will probably pick at it. I want to know what kind of macroalgae it is, so I know if it's something that will grow out of control, or if I can keep it and try to protect it from the hermits until it gets bigger.

[Tired]

It's been growing notably. I did a water change that exposed it, and it turned white briefly, then recovered.

[Jozefs a lizard]

it is some macro algae, i cant realy see the macro algae in the pic, is it the green thing, since it looks like hornwort, i guess it is some color form of dead mans fingers algae

 

[Tired]

It's the green stuff in the center of the picture. It's not a dead man's finger, it's not solid. It's a very fine macroalgae with fronds coming off the stem in rings. 

 

This is a freshwater plant, but it looks exactly like this, only tiny.

[Jozefs a lizard]

green branching gracilaria? im not realy sure might be it

[Tired]

Nope. Its fronds grow in sections on the stem, like the plant in my last post. A roughly circular profile, when seen from above. Gracilaria branches in a completely different pattern.

[ValerieR]

Is that tufted joint algae? It's so small, it's hard to know what many of the types look like before they grow out a bit.

[Tired]

That's closer, but the tufts on tufted joint algae are kind of messy. This has a definite pattern to it. It's been growing, but looks the same- it's just getting longer, no wider, and no new shapes.

 

I may have to get some tufted joint algae, though, that's pretty cool-looking.

[thedon986]

It looks like some algae I have had before. Mine I confirmed to be Caulerpa verticillata. Check that out, it might be that. It's pretty quick growing so watch out.

[Tired]

Ha, that's it, thank you!

 

Dang, I was hoping it wasn't invasive. Oh well. I'll see if my cleaning crew eats it, and if not, I'll keep it pruned down small. I figure if I only have an inch-wide patch of the stuff, it going sexual won't hurt anything. 

[thedon986]

Best of luck. I decided to get rid of it all when I saw it start popping up on other rocks. 

[Tired]

I'm reading that some people have had this stuff grow through their live rock, which is pretty impressive. I'm kinda expecting my hermits to eat it at some point, so I'm not too worried, and I'll yank any excess with tweezers if I have to. It seems to suffer pretty quickly if exposed, so if it starts spreading a ton, I'll just leave it out of water for like 10 minutes and let the hermits get it while it's stressed.