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

Yeah, I believe they are a little poisonous, but that whole toxic scare has been blown way out of proportion IMO. You probably have a greater chance of getting into a horrible car accident on your way to the LFS than you do by getting poisoned by these things. FWIW I've been handling Zoanthids, Palythoas, Protopalythoas etc for years on end with my bare hands and have never gotten sick, but if your still concerned just wear protective eyewear and gloves when your working with these corals and you should be fine.
 
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AlSimmons said:
Yeah, I believe they are a little poisonous, but that whole toxic scare has been blown way out of proportion IMO. You probably have a greater chance of getting into a horrible car accident on your way to the LFS than you do by getting poisoned by these things. FWIW I've been handling Zoanthids, Palythoas, Protopalythoas etc for years on end with my bare hands and have never gotten sick, but if your still concerned just wear protective eyewear and gloves when your working with these corals and you should be fine.
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Thank you!!
 
Got another one for you guys can't seem to get a definite ID. One of my rocks gave these little red strings coming out of a couple of crevices in the rock. This is the main area though.
 

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Do the strings move around at all? If so then they might be from either a Terebellid or Ciratullid worm, both of which are harmless.
 
Found this guy growing out of my sand bed. Hard to tell from the picture but it is white/translucent and a little bigger than your common aptasia. Is it part of the aptasia family? How can i naturally remove it? It is pretty close to a colony of zoas I have on the sand. Peppermint shrimp?
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There is always something new popping up.

The first one appears to be a slug of some sort. This one was stuck on the underside of my class scrubber. Then, later tonight I saw it booking around the back glass of my tank when the lights were off. Hopefully it's not a harbinger of doom in the tank.

The next thing, I have no idea what it is. To the naked eye it *looks* like a piece of my orange Ricordea Florida (it glows orange under blue light), but under the zoom of my camera it looks like a stalk, not a mushroom. It's super-tiny ... small enough to be sucked up with a 3ml pipette. I thought Ricordeas split in half to multiply. Can they occasionally just shed little pieces and multiply that way?

This is the third time I've seen one of these over the past month. The other two were laying together in a low-flow corner of my tank and I noticed them in the evening when it was 100% blue light (just before turning off). I just left the other ones alone because I didn't know what to do with them and they just kind of disappeared. This one appeared today after a water change, but the real story is WHERE I found this one.

It was in the grasp of one of my blue-eyed girl zoas -- at the top-right of the tank. The orange Ricordea is located at the bottom-left of the tank. I suppose the water change could have pushed it around the water column, but what are the odds of it landing bulls-eye on a zoa and sitting there long enough to be grasped by it? I thought the zoa was ejecting something at first, until I hit it with some extra blue light and it glowed orange.

This time I put it in a clear measuring cup (the kind used to measure kids liquid tylenol) with a little sand to weigh down to cup. This will keep it in one place so I can keep an eye on it. The pictures were taken on a small dipping bowl that I use to melt my mysis. Don't mind the obnoxious artwork on the bowl. lol

Thanks for the help everyone.
 

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Stomatella snail

Looks like something is biting off pieces of your Ricordia to me

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After a little reading, I was hoping it was a Stomatella.

I've never seen anything picking at the Ricordea, and I also have a green Ricordea right next to the orange one but I've never seen any pieces of that one. Both mushrooms appear perfectly healthy and happy -- which I don't imagine they would if something were biting pieces of them off.

That one has me stumped.
 
Love checking out the reef at night and seeing those creautere that like to avoid being seen. Found this red and white tentacle creeping out of a sponge the last few nights. Any ideas what it is. Good or bad...
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Bryopsis or Caulerpa... either way it's a fast growing algae and you probably don't want it in your reef tank. I have the Caulerpa version in my shallow local reef tank and the 'fronds' get to be several inches long. I don't think (far from 100% sure) that Bryopsis has shorter 'fronds' all the time (and is harder to get rid of).
 
Thanks everyone. I had it growing in two spots (that I found) and pulled them out by hand/tweezers and then took an old toothbrush and scrubbed the crap out of those two spots. The rock in those spots is now down to the pure white of the original BRS Reef Saver dry rock. Hopefully I caught it early enough and physically removed it well enough that my other algae control process (just starting that) will keep it gone.
 
Hi Everyone. I am builing a 75 gallon reef fish tank. I am moving next month so I am about 6 weeks away from getting it going. In the mean time I have set a 20 gallon tank up to practice water parameter testing. I spotted a hitchiker on one of the rocks I bought from a LFS. I went to The Hitchikers Guide to Your Aquarium at www.lionfishlair.com and identified the creature as Aiptasia. He is now cemented to my rock with aquarium crazy glue. He went into a hole and I basically filled the while with glue. This raised a topic that I havent given much thought. What do I use on a variety of hitchikers? What if a fish gets sick. What do I use if my ph is high? What if and on and on? So the question I am asking is a list of must haves in the event a problem need be addressed. What do the pros say are must haves in the event of a problem. Any feedback will assist me in being proactive in the event of a problem.

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