Free floating epitokes? (Video Link)

[dnadrifter]

Saw these in my tank today floating in the hundreds right after I was pulling on the long elastic string thing in my other post.   I also saw larger versions (1 cm) of kind of looked like the same thing on rocks and the walls the other day but just a few.  I have a huge number of the spirobid casings on my rocks.  Is this what they are?  Click picture for a link to the video.

 

[WV Reefer]

31 minutes ago, dnadrifter said:

Saw these in my tank today floating in the hundreds right after I was pulling on the long elastic string thing in my other post.   I also saw larger versions (1 cm) of kind of looked like the same thing on rocks and the walls the other day but just a few.  I have a huge number of the spirobid casings on my rocks.  Is this what they are?  Click picture for a link to the video.

 

I would guess epitoke

[Tired]

Agreed. An epitoke is kind of like if flowers made their own bees out of petals- it's a portion of a worm that has broken off to go find other pieces of worm and reproduce with them, so the main worm (which doesn't bother with having reproductive organs) can go about its business out of sight. It's the reproductive portion of a worm of some sort, and probably whatever it is, is harmless. Spirobids and other tubeworms don't leave their tubes unless something is very, very wrong. 

[dnadrifter]

Hmmm, interesting.   Perhaps I should change the title so others can find it.

 

Do you think it had anything to do with me pulling on that other elastic string thing?

 

[Tired]

Unlikely. More likely they all got a signal to spawn at once, from the weather or from a slight chemical shift. 

 

Changing the title would be good. Always nice to have ID threads named so people can find them easily. 

 

...hm, actually, can you still find that string? How thick was it? I suppose it's possible that's a string of eggs. No clue what it would be from, except maybe a nudibranch of some sort? 

[dnadrifter]

Yeah, I put the string in a bit of water in a container.   I would estimate maybe 0.5-0.8 mm.   Thinner than snail eggs you see on glass, which I would estimate at closer to 1-1.5 mm (although they seem to get thicker as time goes on)   It just seems like too much of a coincidence that i have never seen it before and right when I yanking on the string and moving it around the tank was flooded with those things.   There are small dots on the string.    It was super elastic and strong.

 

Its a young tank and I haven't put much in purposefully.   Astrea and Ceriths, dry rock and coral.   There was  a cleaner shrimp in there for a few weeks months ago.

[Tired]

Oh, it looks bigger in the pictures. At that size, I can almost guarantee you that it's snail eggs, maybe just from a small snail. 

 

Now, it's possible that the same thing that made the snails spawn, also triggered some worms to spawn. But it's also entirely possible that it's coincidence. Wilder coincidences happen.