Whats this Orange hitchhiker?

Well I noticed this odd thing the other night in my tank. It is living under my moonstone(Favite). I was thinking it was a hitchhiker cucumber of some kind. At night it does have these odd bristly feather things extended from it. Looks almost like a plant coming out from under my coral at night. I did add some pics of the coral upside down and what the hitchhiker looks like.

 

does it move? swell?

 

looks like some abnormal GSP mat...

 

No it just kind of sits there and has this feathery thing out at night. I'm thinking its a sea cucumber of some type filter feeding at night?

 

A sea cucumber would move and have a shape to it. This looks like some sort of softy coral.

 

It looks like a cucumber to me. There are various types of filter feeding cucumbers that use a feathery/branch like modified mouth to pull particles out of the water column.

They tend not to move one they find a place they like. I have had smaller pink cucumber hitch hikers stay in the same spot for months on end.

 

I vote for a cuke....the picture looks like it is somewhat curled back on itself. This may sound odd, but does one end appear to have an opening in it that opens and closes? If so then thats the "tail end" of a cuke of some sort.

check this link out to my cuke and see if your mystery creature looks anything like mine.

http://www.3reef.com/forums/inverts/my-new-psychedelic-sea-cuke-82762.html

either way, whatever it is, it looks cool!

 

I guess you're right. It does resemble the warty cucumber. I just can't get over the fact of the shape of it. It initially looked like a colonial ascidian with the shape.

 

I can see where you would get that from - it really does look odd in that position. If it were not for the fact that I have seen that sp. of cucumber before I would have probably assumed it was something else.

 

The day after the date of those pics on my posted cuke thread, mine (now named Hendrix) had slowly pulled himself up onto the rocks and has not budged ever since. He has basically parked himself under my big umbrella leather and seems pretty contented to hang out do his filter feeding thing.

My other little sand sifting cuke (Dill) is a different story - he is all over the place.