[Ron Reefman]

ace, I also posted this in the 'Inverts" forum and mndfreeze suggested that it might be, and I think I agree, that it's a sea cucumber. The mouth/feeding parts that this kind of cucumber puts up out of the sand looks very much like the basket star, so they could easily be confused. The way they eat and clean off the tentacles is the same.

But the research I did says basket stars tend to find a place to attach and stay put for long periods of time. The sea cucumber moves around under the sand. The star can curl up into a ball and make itself small, but the cucumber can pull in all the feeding tentacles into it's mouth and disappear into the sand, which is exactly what this one did in the first video.

I'm cleaning up an algae issue in the 125g tank so I can start selling off the corals (I have tons of zoas) in the tank that this animal is in. I want to downsize by selling off the 125g and just keep the 50g cube that is currently sharing the same sump. So I'd love to 'collect' this guy and move it to the 50g which has a deeper sand bed that is newer and sugar fine rather than the older and very crusty sand that is in the 125g.