your opinion: barnacles on acros...

[monkiboy]

on a few acropora colonies, mostly mari-cultured or wild, that come in from time to time i've been finding barnacles. with my personal tanks and systems in the past i've never really paid any mind to them and never had issues. i've been doing more and more reading find much of the same feelings amongst other SPS care-takers.

 

i was wondering what's the take or experience with barnacles on acropora or perhaps even other skeletal structured coral from those on WAMAS?

 

below is a quick video of a barnacle on an acropora colony currently in qt. you can see the penis or likely the cirri (don't know if the former only comes out during sperm-casting) extend itself even while the coral is out of water for the entire duration of filming while i tried to get the barnacle in focus over a couple takes. 

 

thanks for any input you can provide!

 

[Orion]

Nice video. What do barnacles eat, and can they even survive in our tanks for a long period of time?

I would imagine that they are harmless filter feeders, and if I had one on one of my acros it wouldn't bother me. I had one on a cerith snail shell before.

[kkozak81]

I have a small acro colony that I've had for several months now that has one on it and I haven't had any issues with it.

[Coral Hind]

They never seem to live past six months. I guess because of lack of food in my tank for them to eat. Rarely, I have had them die and cause issues of RTN near the site but it was with corals that were not in good flow. I think the reduced flow caused the decay to infect the coral's tissue.

[sen5241b]

Barnacles can be very bad. I had a barnacle right between two torch polps and at first I liked it as a cool hitchhiker. As the barnacle shell grew bigger,  it put pressure on the torch until it crushed and killed it. I would have stopped the barnacle sooner but I wasn't really watching it that carefully. Consider that the barnacle shell can multiply several times in size. I crushed the barnacle with a vise grip so it wouldn't kill the second torch,

Edited April 21, 2014 by sen5241b

[YHSublime]

This is just my presumptions, but I would say that your acros will probably grow faster than said barnacle. I bet that it will either starve to death, or the acro will grow over it. I bet in trying to remove it you would probably cause more trouble than leaving it be.

[scott711]

I have had a few on many of my sps.  The sps tends to grow over them eventually.

[sachabballi reef]

yep i ignore them...harmless

[gmerek2]

Mine hasn't hurt the acro yet

[sen5241b]

The barnacle I had doubled in size in about 6 months.

[monkiboy]

thanks so much for the feedback folks!