Hi, I’m new to the forum and quickly becoming addicted.
I have been in the hobby for over 10 years upgrading every few years to bigger and better tanks. My interest and devotion to the hobby were relatively minimal until last June when I upgraded from a 75 gallon to a 210. Since then my dedication to the hobby has increased tenfold. After all these years, I thought I had heard about, or run across most of the pests and hitchhikers out there, but every week I find something new in my tank that I can’t identify. I continually want to post my inquiries on the forum but end up deciding against it to avoid the risk of looking like a fool that should know better after 10 years. Today though I’m feeling brave enough to take the plunge after reading so many other threads and all the helpful answers everyone provides on R2R.
So, here’s my questions, yesterday I was working in my tank and when I was done it felt like I had a piece of fiberglass under my fingernail. I wouldn’t have thought much about it however this wasn’t the first time I had felt this sting after touching something in my tank.
A couple months after I transferred everything from my 75 to the 210 my 3-year-old Maxima clam died. I thought it was because either I damaged the foot in the move or because a new Sailfin Tang addition kept picking at it. Anyway, a little while after I moved the empty shell I noticed/felt a bunch of these fiberglass looking spikes sticking out of my fingers. At the time, I thought I had gotten them from the outside sprinkler box cover that I had touched 5 minutes before (and just thought it was weird I hadn’t felt them sooner). So, after connecting the dots last night I went to bed wondering what was in my tank leaving little barbs all over. I started thinking it was these things (I have no idea what they are either, but they are popping up all over my live rock. Any help identifying them would be appreciated as well).
That was until this morning, during my morning flashlight stalking of the critters in my tank I ran across this thing. Sorry for the crappy pictures, this is a full picture to give size perspective:
And the best close up of it I could get:
Just so everyone knows my Monti normally doesn’t look white like that. It normally looks like this:
Since I had never seen it before I figured I should remove it first and find out what it is later (just in case I didn’t see it again). I tried for 20 minutes with no luck. I was able to grab an arm, once, it had such a grip on my Monti that I broke the arm off. I felt bad for a minute, thinking I had just hurt a friendly critter for no other reason than my unfamiliarity with it. However after I tried to get the arm unstuck from my tweezers I realized this had to be the little SOB leaving its painful barbs all over.
So now I need to know what I am dealing with, how to get rid of it, and I would like to know if it is responsible for the deaths of my clam, Canary Blenny and Mandarin. Both the Canary and Mandarin had huge spots eaten off of them which would have had to have happened during the night because I do an inspection every night before bed and every morning before going to work. (I only have pictures of the Canary because he held on to life through out the day).
Since they both slept in the sand I though my brittle star had gotten big enough that she was able to grab and hold onto a sleeping fish, even though she had never done anything like that in the 6 years she had been in my tank (her body was the size of a 50¢ piece and her arms extended out over 12 inches). Just to be on the safe side though I traded her into my LFS as soon as I was able to catch her. I haven’t had any other fish die and since my 3 Pearly Jawfish and Firefish are still thriving, sleeping in the sand and rocks I thought the problem was solved. However with the new discovery this morning, I’m not so sure she was the culprit anymore. Any thoughts as to what would do this to two fish in less than a month? The only power-heads I have are 2 Apex Wav's and I don't think they got stuck in them or they would have still been there when I found them. They were both laying on the sand next to the same pile of live rock.
Can anyone tell me what kind of devil this is, and any information they have on it? How fast do they multiply? What do they eat? How can I remove it without pulling it apart piece by piece since it’s barbs stab into anything it is holding onto like superglue?
Thank you for any assistance,
Bonnie
I have been in the hobby for over 10 years upgrading every few years to bigger and better tanks. My interest and devotion to the hobby were relatively minimal until last June when I upgraded from a 75 gallon to a 210. Since then my dedication to the hobby has increased tenfold. After all these years, I thought I had heard about, or run across most of the pests and hitchhikers out there, but every week I find something new in my tank that I can’t identify. I continually want to post my inquiries on the forum but end up deciding against it to avoid the risk of looking like a fool that should know better after 10 years. Today though I’m feeling brave enough to take the plunge after reading so many other threads and all the helpful answers everyone provides on R2R.So, here’s my questions, yesterday I was working in my tank and when I was done it felt like I had a piece of fiberglass under my fingernail. I wouldn’t have thought much about it however this wasn’t the first time I had felt this sting after touching something in my tank.
A couple months after I transferred everything from my 75 to the 210 my 3-year-old Maxima clam died. I thought it was because either I damaged the foot in the move or because a new Sailfin Tang addition kept picking at it. Anyway, a little while after I moved the empty shell I noticed/felt a bunch of these fiberglass looking spikes sticking out of my fingers. At the time, I thought I had gotten them from the outside sprinkler box cover that I had touched 5 minutes before (and just thought it was weird I hadn’t felt them sooner). So, after connecting the dots last night I went to bed wondering what was in my tank leaving little barbs all over. I started thinking it was these things (I have no idea what they are either, but they are popping up all over my live rock. Any help identifying them would be appreciated as well).
That was until this morning, during my morning flashlight stalking of the critters in my tank I ran across this thing. Sorry for the crappy pictures, this is a full picture to give size perspective:
And the best close up of it I could get:
Just so everyone knows my Monti normally doesn’t look white like that. It normally looks like this:
Since I had never seen it before I figured I should remove it first and find out what it is later (just in case I didn’t see it again). I tried for 20 minutes with no luck. I was able to grab an arm, once, it had such a grip on my Monti that I broke the arm off. I felt bad for a minute, thinking I had just hurt a friendly critter for no other reason than my unfamiliarity with it. However after I tried to get the arm unstuck from my tweezers I realized this had to be the little SOB leaving its painful barbs all over.
So now I need to know what I am dealing with, how to get rid of it, and I would like to know if it is responsible for the deaths of my clam, Canary Blenny and Mandarin. Both the Canary and Mandarin had huge spots eaten off of them which would have had to have happened during the night because I do an inspection every night before bed and every morning before going to work. (I only have pictures of the Canary because he held on to life through out the day).
Since they both slept in the sand I though my brittle star had gotten big enough that she was able to grab and hold onto a sleeping fish, even though she had never done anything like that in the 6 years she had been in my tank (her body was the size of a 50¢ piece and her arms extended out over 12 inches). Just to be on the safe side though I traded her into my LFS as soon as I was able to catch her. I haven’t had any other fish die and since my 3 Pearly Jawfish and Firefish are still thriving, sleeping in the sand and rocks I thought the problem was solved. However with the new discovery this morning, I’m not so sure she was the culprit anymore. Any thoughts as to what would do this to two fish in less than a month? The only power-heads I have are 2 Apex Wav's and I don't think they got stuck in them or they would have still been there when I found them. They were both laying on the sand next to the same pile of live rock.
Can anyone tell me what kind of devil this is, and any information they have on it? How fast do they multiply? What do they eat? How can I remove it without pulling it apart piece by piece since it’s barbs stab into anything it is holding onto like superglue?
Thank you for any assistance,
Bonnie
