Predator or irritant? Never seen this before...

[kpk]

Got a few frags last weekend, peroxide and coralrx dipped all frags, and put them in the quarantine setup. Anyways...one of the frags took a couple of days to open and the. Today I noticed they haven't opened. I proceeded to do another dip 2x as strong and for about 15 minutes.

Well I looked and saw a little mantis shrimp looking think jerking around. About the size of a copepod and length of a amphipod. The. Between two polyps I saw another one squirm out.

They look just like a mantis shrimp, but would they be that small? Can't find any pics of them as being zoa predators.

 

[A. Grandis]

Oh yeah, of course, the born small and grow.
Try to get them out of the system.
I never heard about mantis shrimp eating polyps, but they sure irritate them.

I would stop dipping the zoas and would try to catch the shrimps instead.

Grandis.

 

[650-IS350]

http://www.coralpedia.com/index.php?module=Gallery2&g2_itemId=396

 

[A. Grandis]

Yep, never thought about spiders. Disgusting!!
There is a pic with an amphipod to compare sizes!
Good catch!
Could be it!

Grandis.

 

[kpk]

Don't think it's a spider. They are long and skinny with multiple legs underneath. White/clear with black eyes. I'm going to see about borrowing a microscope tomorrow and see if I can get a pic. If its not a mantis it looks pretty close to one.

I looked at coralpedia before posting and didn't see anything similar on the zoa list.

 

[A. Grandis]

Did you catch them?

Grandis.

 

[650-IS350]

http://www.chucksaddiction.com/coraldisease.html

 

[kpk]

Yes I got two of them with the coralRx dip. I tried to take a couple of pics. See how they look for you guys...

The first pic looks like the top right is his tail and the bottom left his head.





Sorry for the sucky pics...

 

[A. Grandis]

Yep, not spiders.
Probably a mantis shrimp, I would say. Irritators!!
You can put the polyps back and enjoy them, I guess.

Grandis.

 

[kpk]

Thanks Grandis. I hope that its not a mantis, but if it is I also hope That's the only two!

You guess? Lol

 

[TampaSnooker]

If it's not a mantis, maybe a pistol shrimp. Tough for me to tell from the pic, but you're on the right track.