any idea what this strange critter is???

Magnum Man

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I suspect it's a fungus, I've never had one like this in a tank before... I saw it tonight, as the lights were going down, apparently pretty rapid growing... an adult Cory beside it for scale... this is a cool water tank, white sand bottom, with tons of pothos vines growing out of it... should I leave it, or remove it???
IMG_8487.jpeg

so this has kind of turned into my "gothic" aquarium, extremely shaded by pothos vines, it's a darker world... more lighting comes from the background lighting, through a blue water scene, which gives this tank an other worldly look, it's well cycled, there is a little java fern, and an anubias nana, in the tank, but not much greenery below the waters surface, because of lack of light... the water is highly oxygenated, it's a highly filtered 55 gallon tank... it appears to be growing on a dead pothos leaf, on the sand???
 
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It's either a bryozoan or fungus but it's harmless and appears sometimes. Nothing to worry about but something interesting in your tank.
 
had to look up https://www.google.com/search?q=bryozoan&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari

it looks more "lacy" than most of what is pictured in the link... it almost has a paper wasp nest look in person...

I almost never check Ph anymore with large RO water changes, but assume the Ph is in the 6's somewhere, so it's far from a marine environment...

there are actually 2-4 foot LED aquarium lights 18 inches above this tank but pothos, philodendron, and Hoya vines explode from the top of this tank, nearly completely shading it...
 
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still there tonight, maybe a little bigger? about 4 inches long right now...
IMG_8491.png

interesting, I did a tank water top off, and the fill is about a foot and a half from this... lots of water turbulence, yet this didn't waver at all, so it must not be as delicate as it looks...
 
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I tried to get a picture from the end of the tank to get some idea of how thick this is, it almost appears 2 dimensional, and while it seemed to grow off the bottom, the fact that it didn't waver at all, when pumping in water last night, makes me think it may be film like, and attached to the front glass... which would be similar to @Rusty_Shackleford 's suggestion, of some sort of slime mold... total failure getting a thickness picture from the end of the tank, as there is a hang on back filter on that end, and a large air stone, and with 18 inches deep of vines over the tank, getting a look at the thickness or from another angle has proven difficult...

maybe a living??? tank background??? except it's on the front glass...

in going with @GaryE 's politician, suggestion... maybe it's a space alien???
 
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well, 3 full days later...
IMG_8495.png

tonight I think it looks most like "salt creep" that you can get around the top and filters on a marine tank, only that grows on the outside, and this is on the inside, and this tank hasn't had any salt ever added
 
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well this morning it's more like a ghost shadow, i can barely see it... so looks like about a 4 day life span...
 

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