Anyone see my new pet?

[slapshot]

Besides Gordon.

Coolest little guy to watch!

 

[ezhoops]

ok you live near me so either I guess what it is or I have to come see it for myself. its either a shrimp (don't remember the name) or its a seahorse?

 

[uhuru]

I see it

Its a dendronephthya crab (Hoplophrys oatesii). I had one before but got rid of it when I read that they eat the coral and steal its polyps to for camouflage. They are beautiful. I would just keep an eye on the overall health of the coral. We have a hard enough time just trying to keep up with their metabolism as is. Maybe they have some benefit to the coral we don't know about though... or maybe in the wild the damage is simply insignificant.

 

[slapshot]

Yep, Mike is right. I Don't think anyone knows the good and bad. It's a huge denron so well see. In the meantime he is cool.


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[Aquabacs]

Nice Don Any chance you can pan out
a bit to check out that dendro?

Mike

 

[Bongo Shrimp]

I should have gone with you Don. Now I might have to grab one of those dendros... Tell 'em about the giant chili.

 

[slapshot]

I'll get a picture when it opens up. They had a chili coral that shrunk up was 15 inches by 9 inches. I can't imagine how big that thing would expand to.


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[slapshot]

They also had one that had a starfish that matched the dendronephthya. He was also cool.


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[fullmonti]

Very cool. Was he a hitchhiker or a separate purchase? At Tropicorium?

 

[slapshot]

Very cool. Was he a hitchhiker or a separate purchase? At Tropicorium?

Yes at Trop. He was a hitchhiker. They did not charge me more for him but there is not just one there is two. One is much larger then the other so I think they are a pair. I have been watching them they don't seem to be bothering the polyps. More grabbing stuff from the water. There is a couple of spots on the coral that look to be missing polyps though, not near where they hang out. They are very small spots so maybe there were no polyps there. I will watch them closely and see if they become destructive. So far they wave their arms like a porcelain crab does, but no net.

 

[fullmonti]

I love little inverts like that. I have a few, & am always on the lookout for more. Wish I had a good LFS!

 

[uhuru]

They are related to decorator crabs. They do steal the polyps to camouflage themselves, they also ingest the polyps and incorporate the pigment into their tissue so they look just like the coral they are on. Whether or not this causes significant damage in our tanks has yet to be seen. In the wild they obviously don't really cause any damage.

 

[Bongo Shrimp]

I just picked up my 5"+ dendro. While we (a guy who worked there and I) were examining the other ones for a crab, we found that the ones that had special brittle stars actually did not have stars. The stars were these worms that looked like starfish arms. We also found a cool snail that blended in with the coral. I would have gotten the one with the snail but it had some worms on it along with the snail.

There was one dendro that had a small brittle star on it that was white and purple but that one also had worms and I didn't want worms in my tank. Plus I assume the worms are much more destructive than much else.

The dendro I got was completely opened up in the tanks at the shop unlike the ones that had worms on them. It was so healthy I couldn't pass it up. I'm going to look online and see if I can find pics of the worms.

 

[Bongo Shrimp]

I found a little tiny white shrimp on mine. It looks like a pistol shrimp since one claw is huge. No idea how I cold possibly get a pic of this guy. I need a macro lens...


Ok Don, now we need a GOOD pic of your two dendro crabs.