Rock came ...

[scowiii]

My gorgonian is just fine in the sand. It actually has grown. ANd it seems to eat the brine shrimp in the tank that I give the rest of the inhabitants. I know it seems weird but the polyps close on it and slowly eats it.

 

[Miggo]

More Questions ...

More Questions ...

A couple of things have shown up lately and we were kind of wondering what they were. Also, does anyone have a favorite reference book they use to help identiry these types of things? I've seen things mentioned in some posts, but maybe someone here has a suggestion where a lot of these types of creatures are shown.

Does anyone know what the yellow guy is in this photo?

Also, is anyone familiar with the white guys in this photo?

And finally, does anyone have any suggestions for bait to use to catch this guy? We've tried a piece of frozen shrimp and he stuck his head in the door. We just need something to get him the rest of the way in. If it works, we can try it on a few others we have. We've read that it's not the most effective way to get them, but we really don't want to go through the hassle of removing a few hundred pounds of rock and squirting all the holes. We're kind of getting a kick out of watching him laugh at us.

Thanks again for any help you can give us.

 

[tangafish]

miggo, i have the twin to your green mantis..i am hoping to catch him and set him up his own tank. i have put a trap in there, i have taken the rock out and shot the cold seltzer water in there too but alas the little 1 inch mantis has continued to elude me..fortunately he is in a seperate tank so i dont have to worry about him getting loose in my reef tank. he is actually kinda comical he mainly stays in one hole and will just pop his head in and out..almost like he is mocking me:hammer: every night he fills the end of his hole up to prevent any intruders.ME. oh well i like a challenge I am sure in time we will both prevail and catch our critters..:rollface: :rollface:

 

[voodude]

Miggo ... from what I tried for a few months ... forget it ... he's smarter than we are ... I went the other way ... my mantis is now my buddy ... he sees/hears me and pops his head out of a rock and begs for food! I get the long tweezers, a small piece of something, and lower it in ... most times he comes out, sits up like a prarie dog, and now takes the food very nicely ... used to grab the tweezers in a bear hug :lmao: It's never done any damage that I can see (unlike the KingKong gorilla crab I have (body the size of a dime!) that is more bold since I took the triggerfish out of the reeftank to his own. They are quite funny ... and FAAAAST.. good luck tryin, tho' ... here's my guy .. now about 2" long (first good pic I was able to get..camera shy:lol:

I now hear some clicking in the new 30G:eek2: I think it's talking to this guy .. kinda like indian smoke signals across the mountains!!:hmm5: Gonna try the trap on the KingKong this weekend ... it's hungry now that I have no food going in the tank..tried death-by-bar-b-que-fork, but he saw it coming..gotta figger out a method like this ===>:blown: :lol2:

 

[Miggo]

I think we have three. The neon green one, a little darker green one, and then one that looks a little like voodude's. That one is brown and green with brownish rings around it. I don't think they're wrecking too much, but we are missing a couple of chromis. I don't know if it's a mantis or this guy ...

Or maybe even one of these.

The first one too me seems really big. But I'm very new at this and am not sure if it's big or not. I wish i could have caught a fish in the picture, or something else to put it in perspective.

 

[HowardW]

Get him the heck outa there ASAP.....BAD, BAD, NASTY, stone crab.

 

[Miggo]

Crap, I guess I kinda knew that, but didn't want to admit it. I just have to figure out how. He has a tunnel under a big rock at the bottom of the tank from the front to the back, and I think he holes up in there. I just gotta try to lure him out into a bag or something. Unless anyone else knows a good way to get him.

I have a bunch of stuff to get out of there.

Thanks Howard. I mean it nicely, I just wish it for something that was better news.

 

[HowardW]

It's possible you may be able to nab him in a trap or a tilted glass, but they are wary and very fast. You may have to just move some rocks and quickly remove the one he hides in, or take a net and try to chase him out from under his rock and into the net.

 

[Miggo]

Thanks again Howard, and my wife for pushing me into putting the glass in just the right spot.

Got any suggestions short of pulling rocks out of the tank for a few of these?

 

[HowardW]

Nice job on getting that stone crab, they are nasty evil creatures :lol:

 

[tangafish]

i caught my green mantis, i got lucky my son saw him go into a small rock and we just pulled out the rock and put him in his own tank, i set him up a 10 gallon tank all his own. kermit hasnt came out yet but i just put him some shrimp in there so sure he is probably chowing down while i am on here.. now if only the rest of you could be so lucky :lol: glad you caught that stone crab miggo before he got any bigger way to go!

 

[Miggo]

Now she caught one of the mantises. She's going after a gorilla crab now, for the Bad Guy Hat Trick. Found out my watch really is waterproof when I got the mantis out.

 

[Miggo]

Kermit's a good name for him. I'd like to setup a tank for ours too, but don't know what all I need beside the tank. He's in a plastic container now, but I don't know how long he'll survive in there, maybe I could do water changes with tank water, but I'll have to do something better soon.

 

[tangafish]

i have an extra 10 gallon w/ everything but a skimmer that i had been using for quarantine but bought a bigger one so his tank was just sitting in the corner empty anyway.. i put him some extra rock and put some of my condi's in there richard sent me..

i am still amazed that some how my nutty decorator crab managed to keep from being a kermit buffet but glad he did because he is a real trip to watch.

miggo you could always put him in your sump for now just be careful he wont get sucked up into any of your equipment. i would think if you put him a rock in there with him he would be ok and most likely stay close to the rock. just a thought

 

[voodude]

Good job ... whatever tank you pick, tangafish is right about the rock ... but you should have some water flow to keep things moving in there ... Don't have to worry about my KingKing gorilla any more .. somehow he got caught in the powerhead-O-matic !!! Didn't know what was stuck in there till I knocked it off and the 3 peppermint shrimp held a tug of war .. then I saw it was a big claw and part of its body ... Mr. Mantis did his job I think (wondered why he wasn't hungry for a couple of days) !!!!!!!

 

[Miggo]

Wondering if anyone can help me. I'm probably posting this in the wrong forum, but there are alot of experienced people who have helped me out before so I decided to post here.

All of the sudden, within a day about 2 days ago, a couple fish died. i noticed a couple of dead crabs also. Also some other things are on the verge of dying. I checked the water parameters, and they look fine. The salinity was a little low ... 1.025. I did about a 15% water changed with extra salt to increase the salinity.

Below are some pictures of what some of the stuff looks like. We don't know what to try. There looks like there's little brown fuzz on some of the things.

Here are some green star polyps that you can see the fuzz a little on it.

This was a rock full of zoanthids, now some don't open at all, and some very little.

Thanks for any help or suggestions anyone has.

 

[HowardW]

<<< All of the sudden, within a day about 2 days ago, a couple fish died. i noticed a couple of dead crabs also. Also some other things are on the verge of dying >>>


Most crabs are generally very hardy. You either have something killing them along with your fish, a disease of some sort, or a serious water quality issue with one or more parameters way out of whack. If various corals are not opening now, that leans towards a water quality issue.......check everything, including if something went bad in the tank like a powerhead or whatever.

 

[tmcchicago]

You might also want to take a water sample to a local LFS for testing. It is possible that one of your test kits has gone bad and what you think is an OK water quality is, in fact, off the mark.

 

[Miggo]

I agree with you guys, it sure does sound like a water quality issue. I can't think of anything that may have caused it though.

Would it be beneficial to do a bunch of big water changes? It's a 180 gal. tank with a 55 gal. sump. Should I do 25 gallon or 40 - 50 gallon water changes every day for a few days?

 

[HowardW]

Water changes are always a good thing, however I would also try to identify what the problem is and if it's a water quality problem to begin with. If you don't already, I would also run a high quality carbon like Matrix or Rox 0.8 and also check your alk, pH, nitrate, etc. There are also various places that will do extensive water tests for a reasonable fee like this place: aquariumwatertesting dot com