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oh NO, what did I introduce to my tank, photos included ID please!

C

Candi

I have some sort of tiny critter infestation... these are the best photos I could get given these things are small (see photo with my finger for size comparison).

They are on my LR and near my corals, seem to move fairly slow in the tank but are able to move fast when someone is trying to grab them with long tweezers ;)

Only thing I've put in the tank recently is some macro, guessing they came in on that unless for some reason they were always here and are only now showing up?

Please tell me these aren't some sort of fish attacking critter...

thing1.jpg

thing2.jpg

thing3.jpg
 
A

albie611

it looks like a chiton, or an isopod to me.
i refrenced my reefers atlas andthose were the two best matches i could find
 
C

Candi

One of the "experts" on RC ID'd it as: serolid isopod, sometimes called a sand skater. Said its a harmless scavenger... I'm guessing it came in on the macro, which I didn't even think to QT... glad its something harmless!
 
K

kathainbowen

Yeah, contrary to the popular belief that all isopods are parasitic and evil, there are LOADS of beneficial, scavenging isopods!

A friend of mine is still trying to figure out how she can locate and set up a tank for a giant isopod. They're really neat! Generally scavengers but also carnivorous (feasting on the bodies of whales, sharks, fish, etc!). Alicia (friend) loves crustaceans, to the point where she had a tank set up for a blue crawfish named Spak for three years until he died. I'm trying to convince her to set up a tank for a pom pom crab or sexxy shrimp.

But, I digress. Check it out! The giant isopod!

isopod_450.jpg
 
C

Candi

Couldn't resist posting that photo could you ::shudders:: LOL

Glad my variety are itsy bitsy in comparison! A blue crawfish is actually what got me into the hobby, to long of a story but I'm still thankful to the little guy for introducing me to my unknown passion of reef/fish keeping!
 
K

kathainbowen

Candi said:
Couldn't resist posting that photo could you ::shudders:: LOL

Glad my variety are itsy bitsy in comparison! A blue crawfish is actually what got me into the hobby, to long of a story but I'm still thankful to the little guy for introducing me to my unknown passion of reef/fish keeping!
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Lol... no.... no I couldn't resist. :p

They're freakishly adorable!

Allicia's crawfish, Spak, was awesome with a particular personality about him. He liked to climb plants up to the tippy top until they flopped over and he ended up on his back on the bottom of the tank, still hanging onto to plant. That, and he enjoyed scaling the top of the rocks and leaping off, like a little crustaceous daredevil! He ended up with a mildly popular livejournal for his adventures.

She wants to start another tank or set up her hermit crab mansion again (did I mention Alicia LOVES crustaceans?) now that she has a new loft in Midtown, Atlanta. She keeps wanting either the giant isopod or a slipper lobster.

Cuter? Better?

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Anywho, I just wanted to assure you that there aren't as many parasitic isopods as we normally like to think.
 
C

Candi

Much better, almost cute even LOL

I think I'll stick with my cleaner shrimp though, my emerald crabs even creep me out a bit (although I do have soft spot for the small evil red eye white racing stripe hitch hiker crab I found in my nano) and you'd never get me near a sally lightfoot, it's a spider... and oh boy do I hate spiders!
 
C

Carlo

Candi said:
Much better, almost cute even LOL

I think I'll stick with my cleaner shrimp though, my emerald crabs even creep me out a bit (although I do have soft spot for the small evil red eye white racing stripe hitch hiker crab I found in my nano) and you'd never get me near a sally lightfoot, it's a spider... and oh boy do I hate spiders!
Click to expand...

How about some of the sea stars? Some look like giant spiders too. :)

Carlo
 
K

kathainbowen

twan said:
That pic is gonna give me nightmares :'(
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..... how do you guys even look at bristle worms if you can't look at a giant isopod? They're like if someone mated lobsters and roly-poly bugs!


.... :-\


... okay... so they DO kind of look like those freakish bug things from the Silent Hill movie that where following around the pyramid man... but those had human-like faces and weird stingers on the end. These are more like if Joe's Apartment cockroaches found a bottle of ooze in the sewer and became giant cockroaches of the deep. My bad.
 
C

Candi

I try to pretend the bristles are furry little caterpillars ;)

For the record the big ones do scare me too, I have a post on here somewhere or other about the giant purple one I used to have in my tank.

I love unexpected freebies in this hobby, but could do without the buggy hitchhikers... I have enough pets w/o needing to worry about the buggy ones too (yes I did set up a whole little nano tank for my hitchhiker crab, then moved him to my new sump) but I draw the line at worms/pods
 
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