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

[jasin401]

Originally Posted by TheKman

feather duster or some kind of coco worm feather duster..good hitch-hiker

[TheKman]

Better picture once I move it closes up really fast

[cloak]

Originally Posted by ArrowCrab

Some kind of anemone or coral?

Hidden cup coral perhaps?

[SushiGirl]

ArrowCrab, it's a ball anemone. Some people say they aren't that bad, but they have infested my tank badly, I mean at least 30 (probably more) in my 55. They irritate the crap out of my zoas. I tried injecting with lemon juice, kalk slurry, and finally white vinegar. The vinegar is working, so I've been after them once a week. I'm going to start hunting them at night when they are really extended.

[SushiGirl]

TheKman, just a regular featherduster & could be hair algae. Are they both on the same shell? Either way you can scrub the algae off with a clean toothbrush in some tank water in a bowl & rinse it off really well in the tank water.

[ArrowCrab]

Originally Posted by SushiGirl

ArrowCrab, it's a ball anemone. Some people say they aren't that bad, but they have infested my tank badly, I mean at least 30 (probably more) in my 55. They irritate the crap out of my zoas. I tried injecting with lemon juice, kalk slurry, and finally white vinegar. The vinegar is working, so I've been after them once a week. I'm going to start hunting them at night when they are really extended.

Hmm, I kind of have half a mind to leave it and see how things go. My tank is very new and I wasn't planning on getting anything but fish for a few months, but a free hitchiker anemone... Are they aggressive towards only corals or fish and inverts also? Would my clownfish host if I left it there and it got big enough? If I put it in my sump would it stay there or spread to the DT? Sorry to bombard you with questions!

[SushiGirl]

It won't get large enough to host clownfish & they're not a true anemone but Pseudocorynactis, more related to mushrooms. If you could manage to remove it you could put it in the sump, but like aiptasia, any piece you don't get will grow another. They don't sting as bad as aiptasia or majano, but they do sting. My zoas hate them & will not open then wither away because they're closed & don't get any light. I cringe every time I hear someone say to leave them because they won't spread simply because I know first hand just how much of a plague they can be LOL. I started with one that I missed on a frag I got from someone local, and I decided one wouldn't hurt based on people saying that. That was a little over a year ago, and after looking last night after the lights went out I realized that I have much more than my last guess of 30. 2 months ago I counted 25 that I could see & that was with the lights on & only in the front of the tank.

My understanding is that this is the only way they reproduce, so if that's the case they wouldn't manage to get from the sump to the DT through the plumbing...well, unless they get through your pump because they do move around. Not sure what would happen if the pump chopped it up.

I just went through some pics I took the other night & got a pic of one spreading to create another. There are actually 4 in this pic.

[TheKman]

Originally Posted by SushiGirl

TheKman, just a regular featherduster & could be hair algae. Are they both on the same shell? Either way you can scrub the algae off with a clean toothbrush in some tank water in a bowl & rinse it off really well in the tank water.

I will do that tomorrow when i get off of work in the afternoon & yes their are 2 feather dusters on that same shell.

[ArrowCrab]

Originally Posted by SushiGirl

It won't get large enough to host clownfish & they're not a true anemone but Pseudocorynactis, more related to mushrooms. If you could manage to remove it you could put it in the sump, but like aiptasia, any piece you don't get will grow another. They don't sting as bad as aiptasia or majano, but they do sting. My zoas hate them & will not open then wither away because they're closed & don't get any light. I cringe every time I hear someone say to leave them because they won't spread simply because I know first hand just how much of a plague they can be LOL. I started with one that I missed on a frag I got from someone local, and I decided one wouldn't hurt based on people saying that. That was a little over a year ago, and after looking last night after the lights went out I realized that I have much more than my last guess of 30. 2 months ago I counted 25 that I could see & that was with the lights on & only in the front of the tank.

My understanding is that this is the only way they reproduce, so if that's the case they wouldn't manage to get from the sump to the DT through the plumbing...well, unless they get through your pump because they do move around. Not sure what would happen if the pump chopped it up.

I just went through some pics I took the other night & got a pic of one spreading to create another. There are actually 4 in this pic.

Ah well, off to the sump it goes I guess. Thanks for the info!

[SushiGirl]

Kman, just be careful to not break the featherduster tubes if they have them, though all the ones I've had like that were always coming out of holes in the rock.

ArrowCrab, sorry it wasn't better news. Let us know how many you have later LOL.

[debincalif]

Ok, so it's too hard to see in the pics I took... plus my pics wouldn't open last time I tried to post them anyway.

So SushiGirl posted a pic of a Collonista snail... I think the next hitch hiker is one of these critters. Are they really small? The one in my tank is less than 1/4" diameter.

The latest hitch hiker I just saw a few minutes ago. I *think* it's a small brittle star, but can't see enough of it to tell for sure. There are two arms sweeping out into the water from inside of a hole in a rock. Very thin and about 1 1/2" length, with the bristly edges. Definitely not a pair bristleworms - I had those in my previous tank, and this is not what they look like or how they behave. If it's not a brittle star, what else could it be?

The only hitch hiker I had in my first tank was a bumble bee snail... so this time around is pretty fun... four hitch hikers so far!

[SushiGirl]

Yes, they're very small even fully grown.
Arms sounds like brittle star to me.

[AnselnEdie]

I had a few of these fall off a new hammer coral when I dipped it, but apparently I didn't get them all. From what I can find, I'm thinking it's a waminoa flatworm. Can anyone confirm that?

Consensus seems to be that they're pretty harmless unless they explode. Do you agree?

flatworm.jpg

[Sugar Magnolia]

Yes, those are harmless unless you happen to be a copepod. LOL, they eat copepods.

[AnselnEdie]

Originally Posted by Sugar Magnolia

unless you happen to be a copepod

Yikes!






Thanks, Adrienne!

[ReeferKimberly]

Have you ever seen a Stomatella like this? I haven't so I am checking. I could not get a pic but I did a pretty good likeness if I do say so myself, on paint...especially since I have shaky hands. So, it looks like a stomatella but it's shell lookes just like a black coquina shell with white stripes. Not the typical stomatell shape I have seen. Also the white and black are very intense, not dulled like most stoms I know.

[SushiGirl]

We have some orange stomatellas with very iridescent orangish/blackish shells and some gray/silver ones plus some pinkish ones & none of their shells are dull, but I've never seen one with black & white stripes, just solid black with white on the whorl. I'd have to look around to see what I can find, or maybe you could PM Pagojoe, the resident snail expert & see what he thinks. That is a pretty good likeness you drew LOL.

[ReeferKimberly]

Originally Posted by SushiGirl

We have some orange stomatellas with very iridescent orangish/blackish shells and some gray/silver ones plus some pinkish ones & none of their shells are dull, but I've never seen one with black & white stripes, just solid black with white on the whorl. I'd have to look around to see what I can find, or maybe you could PM Pagojoe, the resident snail expert & see what he thinks. That is a pretty good likeness you drew LOL.

lol thanks, my paint skills are legendary (not, lol). Wow pink and orangy ones, cool! I love stomies. I think they are my favorite hitcher and def my favorite snail. I love my little stomies. This makes at least three spotted. If the damn polyclad worm doesn't eat them, maybe they will breed someday. (still looking for that worm, have not seen him since the first time)

[SushiGirl]

We found the mother of all polyclads in our tank Friday night, there's half a clamshell embedded in one of my big base rocks that is 3 x 2 1/2 inches & it almost covered the entire thing when it crawled across it. My boyfriend called me over to ID it & it was halfway in a hole by the time I got there. It's my mission to catch it somehow LOL. Explains why none of our turbos lived. It doesn't seem to bother with the stomatellas, Florida ceriths, or columbellid snails, though...we still have plenty.

As for your possible stomatella, after searching since I last posted, I just now found this pic on another forum, so I'm guessing you just have a really cool stomie. I'm dying to see a pic of yours!!!

[ReeferKimberly]

That's him! How do you do it? I am guessing it's a combination of knowing where to look, having a bunch of things favorited, being competitive and a touch of OCD. Am I right? You remind me of me, but worse! Good job, again! Totally him, shell is a tiny bit more triangle shaped here, but not enough for me to think it's a different kind.

Shucks you got a polyclad too, well, if you like snails and clams! He has taken out my turbo since I found him. But my scallop, small clams and stoms are still here. How do you plan to try and catch yours? I think if I do anything rash he will just break into more worms. If I ever see him again I have the siphon ready to suck him out, that's the best I have thought of yet :/

[SushiGirl]

OCD, competitive, patient, & good at google. I did find a bunch of new reference sites to bookmark while I was looking, but I had to go through 4 pages of "black white stomatella" links to find it. I thought it was funny that the board I found that on, it was ID'd by Melev, who is in our local group here.

Siphoning would be the best bet to get out the polyclad, but I'm trying with a baited bristleworm trap at night & hoping I see him before he slithers back out LOL. I'm up pretty much all night, or at least every 4 hours, right now to take pain meds anyway. I have some frozen clam meat I'm going to use as bait.

[wenwillwego]

Originally Posted by SushiGirl

As for your possible stomatella, after searching since I last posted, I just now found this pic on another forum, so I'm guessing you just have a really cool stomie. I'm dying to see a pic of yours!!!

I got a similar one (for free!) from my LFS, he/she has since spawned a pretty decent colony of similarly colored babies. I fricken love snails.


Here is my critter. I was thinking at first it might be a spaghetti worm, but hopefully you can see from the pictures his tentacles are much more... organized. Some sort of peanut worm maybe?

[SushiGirl]

Never seen one striped that way, but certainly seems like a peanut worm.

[Gagonzalez]

Sushigirl,

Here's a better pic of what I think is a Hammer Coral.

Also took a better pic of that basket. I think it may be some sort of bivalve/clam now.

Found 2 stomatella snails. 1 1/2" and the other 1/4".

[Gagonzalez]

Also bought the rest of my rock and found I have a few more hitchhikers:

A small worm that is too small to take a pic of (1/2" long) but it has about a dozen close tentacles and was picking up very small pieces of coral and was covering his hole. Is this a peanut worm? Good or bad?

Also found aptasia on 1 piece under the rock. How fast do these guys multiply? I just started the cycle about 1 week ago so no corals or fish yet. Was hoping to get a peppermint shrimp to eat it after the cycle is done and I add inverts in. Would this be ok?

Finally.........Found something hiding in a hole that is an alternating Blk/Red/Blk color. Can't tell what it is but after some searches through Google I think it may be a fiddler crab. It has not come out yet but it is a very glossy Red and Black. Unless there is Urchins this color, I don't know what else it could be. Any Guesses?