Pix & ID: Critters that come in your rocks: the good and the bad.

[SushiGirl]

More bristleworms.





Barnacle


Spinoid worm (the 2 threads on the hermit's butt)

[SushiGirl]

You're welcome, WetShepherd, and yes I did! The first digital camera I got was to take pics of my tank hitchhikers LOL.

Featherduster (alas, the Coris Wrasse at it)


Sponges (the bubblegum pink one under my zoas freaks me out!)



And what I was told was juvenile clam hitching on a snail. Not sure if that's what it was or not, this is one of only 2 snails that died in our tank so it might have been a snail predator.

[WetShepherd]

Mind if I ask for the details on the camera?

[mndfreeze]

I love these threads. Everyone is so paranoid about pests but half the time the pests are cooler then the other stuff.

I can't wait to get my shipment of TBS rock since its straight out of the gulf, shipped in water, specifically so I have millions of itty bitty microlife. My first tank was a sterile dry rock start, with a tiny piece of carefully cured live rock. I STILL GOT ALL THE BAD PESTS EVENTUALLY. ;/ Flatworms, hydroids, predator worms, etc, etc. Other people's tanks are worse then the rock right out of the ocean it seems.

Except for crabs, those guys are numerous in this style of live rock, but its a mantis tankm, so free food for him.

[Sk8r]

I could be totally wrong, but I've got a sneaking suspicion that if you cure the rock and kill off all these wonderful critters, all you've done is vacate all these ecological niches that can then be filled by flatworms, aiptasia, hydroids, etc. And if you are a reef, likely you *will* someday import a new hitchhiker of some sort on a specimen rock, and whether or not it proliferates depends on what niches are available for it. I love the surprises that turn up on rock: the ocean's diversity never ceases to amaze me.

[SushiGirl]

I agree with mndfreeze and Sk8r. My first tank I started with uncured live rock. The worst I got from that were hydroids that turned into jellyfish (the first hydroids pic I posted on this thread). This tank was started with dry rock (from my old tank) and a few pieces of cured live rock that was pest free. All of my other bad hitchhikers came from frags in all of my tanks.

WetShepherd, the small thumbnail pics came from a Nikon CoolPix 995 that hasn't been made for years now. I bought it in 2002 when they came out with the newer model. The larger pics come from a Canon 30D that they don't make anymore either LOL. We bought it in '06 right when the 40D came out. I would love to find another point & shoot like the CoolPix, it took awesome pics on the macro setting with its little fixed lens. Sadly, I haven't found anything comparable yet.

[doctorgori]

Originally Posted by evilvelle

Man there are so many pests out there.Wish I could do it all over again with dry dead rock and QT everything. I would love to use the rock I have in my display on a bigger tank in the future but I know I have some unwanted hitchhikers is there a way to dip or clean the rocks of pests and still keep it live with all the beautiful coraline algae?

When I got back into the reef thing I had the same thoughts after fighting the assorted pest last time....

So I did my tank mostly with dead rock and find it absolutley boring...sure it makes for a nice display of stoney corals as a decoration thing; if thats your goal, but insosfar as sitting there and observing it for minutes/hours and finding something interesting to ponder: well not so much

[Fish Hooked]

Sushi - I just obtained the Nikon Coolpix L120 point and shoot hoping it will take good pics of all my tank horrors once I get my first reef set up. That might be the comparable answer to the Coolpix 995.

And now back to your regulary scheduled forum topic.

[SushiGirl]

Let me know if it is, Fish Hooked! Does it have a macro setting (mine had 2)? I miss that camera. About 3 years ago I dropped it, caught it by the strap just before it hit the carpet so that it just barely tapped it, and now it won't focus. It had been dropped way worse than that before LOL.

[J2T]

Originally Posted by SushiGirl

Ball anemone. Supposedly these don't spread like aiptasia, but I missed one on a frag and now have 4 that are irritating 3 different zoas. The leather doesn't seem to care about the one by it.

So glad this got posted, found one in my sump and was wondering what it was

[WetShepherd]

Do copepods every congregate on glass? I have a spot on my front glass which always has a few tiny creatures that move around on the glass - less than 10 of them - right where my return pump dishes out half of it's water. They are so small I can't possibly get a picture - in fact I can't even get much detail with a 10x magnifying glass. They aren't white or black - just some kind of fleshy color in-between. I've also noticed them on my back glass in my QT since seeding it from my DT.

[SushiGirl]

Yes they do. That's usually the only place you can see them, too small to see on the rocks usually. I believe I posted a pic earlier that has a copepod in it.

[WetShepherd]

You did and it has some good detail, I just can't see that much of the ones on my glass to compare. Thanks again

[SushiGirl]

I keep a magnifying glass by my tank

[Bens_Reef]

WOW! after seing some of these pics i have noticed just how many pods i really have. i finally recognized the copepods on the glass, i thought they were micro bubbles from my skimmer. among them though were (from sk8r's description) flatworms. they are listed in the "bad" category. just how bad are they and if i need to get rid of them, how? i also notice alot of these white strings coming out all over the place and eventually they "pull" themselves back into where ever they came from (looks like little holes in my rocks). most of them seem to be coming from under the little rock my zoo is attached to. any help with these please?

[Darsh85]

ID on these hitchhikers please









and these guys on the glass


Thanks


SushiGirl
Premium Member




Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Fort Worth, TX USA
Posts: 3,174
First one is red bubble algae. Not sure on the little red thing below in the first pic, too hard to see.
2nd pic is an aiptasia on the left and looks like a zoa on the right.
3rd pic are hydroid jellyfish.

[SushiGirl]

Originally Posted by Bens_Reef

WOW! after seing some of these pics i have noticed just how many pods i really have. i finally recognized the copepods on the glass, i thought they were micro bubbles from my skimmer. among them though were (from sk8r's description) flatworms. they are listed in the "bad" category. just how bad are they and if i need to get rid of them, how? i also notice alot of these white strings coming out all over the place and eventually they "pull" themselves back into where ever they came from (looks like little holes in my rocks). most of them seem to be coming from under the little rock my zoo is attached to. any help with these please?

Since there are no pics, we need more info.

What color are the flatworms?

White string things could be many things: digitate hydroids, spinoid worms, spaghetti worms, micro brittle star legs, peanut worms, or other worms. Really need a pic for that one, or you can look through this thread or google the names agove & see if you recognize anything.

[Bens_Reef]

i tried to get pics but they are just too small, the flat worms i am seeing are brown and just a little bigger than the copepods on the glass, maybe 1 mm dia. i was thinking the strings may be the digitate hydroids but not 100% ive looked up pics but not sure still

[Bens_Reef]

ok, my wife did a search and we are confident that the strings are spinoid worms

[Reefing Newbie]

I did a thread on this, but since this is for ID's I thought I would ask what this could be. The reddish stuff is slimey and is cyano from what I have gotten for a response. The trickey part is what the little green fern like things are growing out of the cyano. I had bryopsis on a piece of rock but manually removed it from the rock and rinsed in three different buckets before being placed in the 46 gallon tank where I have this powerhead. The stuff is only growing on the powerhead and no where else.

[Sk8r]

Weird. It could be a) bryopsis, not a good thing b) cheatomorpha algae, desirable but not desirable there---being stuck down by the cyano.

[Reefing Newbie]

I find it very odd... Either way it probably won't be there by Monday. I am thinking of soaking in vinegar and water overnight because I want to get the coralline off of it any way. Would be nice to know what it is though. Doesn't look like the Bryopsis I have had in my tank. It could be though that I didn't notice my last piece of Bryopsis until it was a decent size.

[Sk8r]

I view spionids as just nice little cleaners. Tangs eat them, which is kind of a shame, in my book. It's among the little things I enjoy sitting in front of my tank and watching in action.

[Bluemon]

i have a lot of hitchiker clams/ oyster in my tank are they common?

[SushiGirl]

Yes, very common. I've had a lot of different kinds over the years.