alexander_ktn
New member
A few minutes ago I answered a thread with an identification question. I just looked at the images provided and confirmed the id, but then I read the OP and it was something along the lines of: "please help me id this so I can get rid of it". Before the poster even knew what it was...
And it actually made me sad. I mean a reef tank is a very complex system with tons of critters that we never purposely put in. There are probably thousands of creatures in each of our tanks that started out as hitchhikers. Most of them benign or even beneficial. Only very few things can become pests or problems. So why do so many people want to actually kill these animals? Is it just because they were unplanned? Or are they so afraid of getting a pest?
It's the same with crabs or bristle worms - there are tons of those that will never harm anything in a reef tank. I have a huge (2-3" carapace) black crab in one of my tanks that just grazes on algae and leaves everybody alone. If it would start munching on stuff, then I'd relocate it.
It's different with animals that are confirmed predators or otherwise harmful. But even those can in many cases be relocated to the refugium or given away to fellow hobbyists (e.g. in the case of mantis shrimp).
/rant
And it actually made me sad. I mean a reef tank is a very complex system with tons of critters that we never purposely put in. There are probably thousands of creatures in each of our tanks that started out as hitchhikers. Most of them benign or even beneficial. Only very few things can become pests or problems. So why do so many people want to actually kill these animals? Is it just because they were unplanned? Or are they so afraid of getting a pest?
It's the same with crabs or bristle worms - there are tons of those that will never harm anything in a reef tank. I have a huge (2-3" carapace) black crab in one of my tanks that just grazes on algae and leaves everybody alone. If it would start munching on stuff, then I'd relocate it.
It's different with animals that are confirmed predators or otherwise harmful. But even those can in many cases be relocated to the refugium or given away to fellow hobbyists (e.g. in the case of mantis shrimp).
/rant