nepegg89 Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 Its living inside the crevices of my uncured live rock I just got... it only comes out at night... it has legs or tenticles that are banded white and brown or black... fuzzy too.... the main body if there is one doesnt come out... but then again this is the first time I spotted them really well (with a flashlight), theres about three of them and they are reaching out to grab stuff... I cant really get a picture of them cause they are hidden and far back in the tank... any thoughts? maybe a worm or a small hiding crab or a starfish? Link to comment
mmcguffi Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 bristle worm? or spaghetti worm? Link to comment
mmcguffi Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 ahhhh I think you probably nailed it castiel Link to comment
nepegg89 Posted December 7, 2011 Author Share Posted December 7, 2011 Brittle starfish? Its got to be a brittle starfish! Its got 10 or so legs coming from several holes in a central local like in this pic.... and retracts them when you shine light... heres a pic I snapped of it with the lights turned on real fast. I also noticed two small fuzzy crabs in there, unfortunately they are burrowing in my live rock, I wondered where all that dust was coming from lol. Link to comment
mmcguffi Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 it's a brittle star and the crabs are most likely bad btw Link to comment
nepegg89 Posted December 7, 2011 Author Share Posted December 7, 2011 it's a brittle star and the crabs are most likely bad btw Yeah it for sure looks like this will it ever come out? and how do I get rid of the burrowing crabs?? Link to comment
castiel Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 The brittle star is good for the tank. The crabs will be difficult to remove ... traps, or lure them out with some mysis and stake them. I think I have a 'bad crab' in one of my tanks, but haven't noticed any damage so he's staying for now. Link to comment
msscha Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 I have lots of the brittle stars in my tank which was also started with fresh-harvested (aka, uncured) LR. They are supposed to be good, so I have just enjoyed watching them. The crabs on the other hand are not so good. If they are really "small, white fuzzy" looking crabs, probably very shy, then you may want to proactively remove them. I've removed several, but none with traps, unfortunately. I've gotten them out by removing rock, rinsing it with sparkling water, and watching them leave rapidly. If you aren't sure they are bad, just grab them out of the sparkling water and move into a small container with tank water and take to the LFS for identification. I've posted a pick below of what my latest looked like while still in the tank -- both of the big ones turned out to be female, one of which had an egg-covered belly so I'm really glad I got them out! BTW, the sparkling water has not affected anything else, even coral (though I moved plugs out when I could). All the bristle stars, brittle worms, and bivalves/mollusks did just fine. Lost a lot of copepods, but they will re-populate! Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.