Hitchhiking shrimp

[_salty_]

Hello reefcentral!

I got 15 lbs of kp aquatics live rock at the end of October. I've seen a tiny shrimp only once about a week ago. I put some hermits in the tank 2 days ago and this morning a few of them were sucked up in their shell and rolling around the glass; the 3 smallest ones. It was right after I turned the lights on and I didn't see any shrimp. The shrimp I saw last week was about 3/4" long and was mostly see through...do very young shrimp not have any color yet? I don't have a picture of it.

 

[nmotz]

Really difficult to say just based on a description. All different kinds of invertebrates have been known to hitch hike on live rock. Pistol shrimp and mantis shrimp are two of the most common but it could be anything. Listen for popping sounds. If you hear popping it's definitely a pistol or mantis. You might try holding a piece of frozen food with some tongs inside the tank to see if anything comes out to investigate the smell.

On another note, what did you think of the LR from KP Aquatics?

 

[_salty_]

Thanks nmotz. I haven’t heard any sounds other than the hermits falling on the glass I think. It was very small and fast so I didn’t get a great look at it. The rock is very nice, I have snails, pods, worms, sponges, macro algae’s, possibly some type of encrusting coral, many brittle stars of various colors and sizes. It was double bagged, wrapped in wet newspaper in a foam box with about a cup of water in it. There was also a heat pack on top of the foam box. I got a shipping notification on a Tuesday around 6pm and received the rock at my house in St Louis by 10 am Wednesday. I did have a cycle, there was a lot of life on it. I will be ordering more next spring when it’s warm again.

 

[mndfreeze]

You will continue to have some mini cycles, just FYI. There will be more die off from your rocks that will happen over time if that rock came straight out of the ocean. There is always fair amount of sea life that just can't survive in a closed system that covers those rocks and may not die immediately but will slowly disappear.


You really will need to get a picture of the shrimp to get a better ID. There are so many species out there. There are not a lot of "predatory" shrimp out there when it comes to our tanks other than mantis and pistols and those are both pretty unique looking and you can hear them, usually before seeing them.