Have you ever had a cool coral, fish, invert or other critter hitchhike in?

[Anemone_Fanatic]

Our hitchhikers come in on freshly harvested live rock from the Gulf of Mexico.
Good hitchhikers on top of our list are porcelain crabs and sea hares.

That sea slug is really neat! How often do you find them, out of curiosity?

 

[cocoReefer]

Most recently a neon green polyp porites came in from an astrea i got from a florida importer.

 

[LiverockRocks]

That sea slug is really neat! How often do you find them, out of curiosity?

It’s a Ragged Seahare, good looking and so helpful. It’s about 4” long. We’ve had this one a year and it’s an algae eating machine.
They don’t come in very often.

 

[ying yang]

Got this to add to post 13.
Some kind of half red/ half green with turquoise specs clam,survived about 8 months so far in middle of a little mini zoa frag.
And some im guessing 2 tentacle spiniod worms with just the 2 tentacles sticking out ( think called palps) they don't move anyway and something similar on back of one of my hermits shell so not really sure,did think some kind of barnacles at first but idk.

Ovbiously had various sponges from blue tubular to drab white growing in different ways,some removed ,some just left alone

 

[radiata]

The coolest inverts I ever got were a pair of dime sized urchins. Many years back a LFS was bringing in live sand from Florida. It was certainly better "live sand" that one can get today. I got 10 lbs and dumped it in a 10G refugium I was setting up at the time. I discovered the urchins one or two weeks later.

 

[Twreefkazoo]

This week we're going to be talking about reef tank hitchhikers! They are normally thought of in a negative sense, bad critters, but they can also be very cool, and good! I thought today we could start with the "good" ones!

What's the best hitchhiker you've ever had and how did it hitchhike in? Could be coral, fish, inverts or anything you like!

image via @LgTas

I received a great surprise of a flame tail blenny in a piece of live rock that had a beautiful tubeworm attached that I was buying. I did go back and pay for it and it's a delight to have in the reef tank.

 

[LeannaBanana]

Sorry for the shoddy photo, but JUST found this little sea urchin about half an hour ago. Live rock (From Gulf Live Rock) has been in this tank for about 2 weeks and still finding new hitchhikers every day! (Fan worms, brittle stars, nudibranchs, sponges, a mollusk (unidentified), and some unseen worms also in our daily check for life.

 

[DarkReefer]

So far a tiny brittle star was the only cool one I've had hitch hike in.
Not sure what happened to it. It was sitting on a coral before for ages and then disappeared one day never to be seen again

 

[freshblossom]

Not the best photo, but I found a little coral hermit on my Christmas Tree Worm Rock about a week after adding it to tank. I felt like I won the lottery when I discovered it!

 

[Rewd]

I just ordered 35 pounds of aquacultured live rock and got plenty of inverts haha

 

[carbasaurus]

everyone who gets corals, do you get the LR from friends or LR that’s been in an established reef setting?

For the long tentacle plate coral, it was from fairly fresh live rock from Indonesia purchased at my lfs

 

[MaraRavenous]

Stomatella snails, spaghetti worms, a majano nem (I know it's technically a "pest" but it's pretty and hasn't harmed anything as its grown), and bristle worms for me!

 

[vlangel]

That's a deadly poisonous (JUST KIDDING).

Did the scallop live long?

Yes, it continued to grow bigger and bigger for several years until my photosynthetic purple sponge grew in it and smothered it. I wished now that I had been more diligent to keep the sponge from growing there.

 

[Aquarist76]

Had some really cool yellow sponge from a live rock once. Never seen anything like it since.
You can see it in the bottom right of this picture.

 

[Jwise]

I had a tiny feather duster worm come in on some cheato algae from a lfs before, i didnt notice him until about a week after i bought it lol.

 

[dennislagoon]

Found a little brittle star when I added my first corals to the tank last weekend, which I think was pretty cool.

 

[Enderg60]

About 15 years ago I had a baby wolf eel come in inside some liverock. It was about pencil sized and showed up after I added a new rock to my 15g nano. He was great, I kept it for about a year before he found his way into the filter section and got into the pump.

 

[A Young Reefer]

I have considered aiptasia as cool at some point. (big mistake)

 

[McPuff]

So many things! chitons, snails, brittle stars, asterinas, yellow sponges, orange sponges, black sponges, fan worms, gorilla crabs, acro crabs, stomatellas.

When I first made the foray into "corals" I started with a single piece of live rock (real stuff) and just let it sit in the stank for a couple months. Every day I would just stare at it to see what would grow out of it. Was pretty cool.

 

[steveschuerger]

I’ve got tons of serpent and brittle star hitch in and several pistol shrimp. But my favorite has been a pencil urchin. It just looks cool and prehistoric.
almost forgot about this . Second place in fav hitch hiker. Came “in” the rock. Cup Coral