live rock question

I went to a LFS is MD and bought some purple rock for my tank, I noticed therewere alot of rocks with these brown long mushrooms all over it and the guy said there not good for a reef tank. they looked infested. are these really good or bad for FOWLR?

it sounds like they might be Aptasia Anemome just one of the pests you need to look for when buying live rock in this case if the guy said its not good for a reef tank you should have left it anything bad in a reef is bad in a FOWLR so the guy didn't tell you what they were? if not how did he know if they were good or bad?? LFS's sometime dont have a clue but thats another story you will learn. here is a picture of aptasia you can hit them with aptasiax its a solution you use with a syringe you load the syringe with the solution then gentally shoot it at the anemome carefully becasue they will retract back into the rock and hide if you do it carefully the anemone will think its food and ingest the solution which will kill it this is something you will need to keep on top of as they appear then later down the road when your params are better you can get a peppermint shrimp to eat them for you. remember shrimp are more sensitive to water quaity so wait till your tank has settled and the ammonia ,trites and trates 0 good luck and remember it may seem overwhelming now but in no time you will be able to look at the critters good or bad and know what they are and how to take care of the problem. one of the most interesting things about saltwater is never knowing what cool critter is going to show up next:) also remember that some of these things if you try to manually remove them they will send out spores into the water column and just make many many more.

good thing i didnt by that rock! i got a clean purple one

is this aiptasia?

no, they are tiny featherdusters there good.

try to touch one and it will suck itself back in its tube.

they do suck back in the tube. just added 12 lbs of live rock now have 24 is that sufficent for my 20 gal? I got them from a established tank. also have little tiny stars on my glass any idea what that is?

Asterina Starfish they are harmless and make a pretty good free clean up crew for your tank, you usualy want 2 1/2 to 3 pounds of live rock per gallon of water to act as a good biological filter. you will find all kinds of cool creatures as your tank matures..congrats!

The purple rock gives very nice view to tank. The Encrusting Coralline Algae are
helpful for colorful rocks as they gives their color to many saltwater aquariums.