you gotta be kidding me

[berns]

arriving home with a recent zoa purchase, i placed the rock in a bowl with the bag water as usual for a close inspection before i perform a heated fw dip, in this case the zoa rock going into QT as has a bit of pox (pox everywhere in the UK at moment), tho pox not worry me so much now as through experience and lots of flow around infected zoa's seems to sort them out.

anyway before i done a fw dip i see something moving around in a crevis/tunnel in one end of the rock that is not a crab lol, so prodding stick poking into hole was met with a thud lol so now we know we got one of those horrible dangerous shrimp of sorts.

the rock is cylinder shape about 10" long and as fat as your fist, so with only one end having the zoa growth i decided to hammer/chisel it in half and remove the bald end, so small bit of wood in a poly box and rock placed on the wood (no water) i chopped the rock in half.

now the fun begins
out of the cave pops a peacock mantis shrimp
which was quickly followed by a tiger pistol shrimp
then a second pistol shrimp
then a third pistol shrimp
then a fourth pistol shrimp

by now im thinking this is a zoa rock from hell, i cannot believe wat im seeing.

all shrimps placed in a plastic ice cream container with rock remains and a net tied around this and place in QT

needless to say one pistol quickly became dinner for mantis so i removed remaining 3 pistols to another container.

im a zoa fan and take precautions QT tank etc but just think if some poor sod chucked this rock in their full blown reef or in a seahorse tank.

now the worse part, i couldnt find anyone or local marine shops that would take them off me and i never want to kill anything as im a nature lover but in this case i did the deed with a boiling hot water bath which happily seemed instant.


anyone else experience similar hitchikers?

 

[Raptor]

Ya may be able to trade it for something ya want.
Thats alot of critters there. I would have placed them in a twist top cannister

 

[Raptor]

Oh i see ya killed them, The pistols would have been alright in your tank.
I have been looking for some tiger pistols, and goby combo's

 

[Azurel]

The pistols would have been fine in your tank.....The mantis however you had to do what you had to do......That's a lot of shirmps hiding one place, muchless the pistols hiding with a mantis...

 

[berns]

yea i did think pistols not too dangerous but i collect the small sexy shrimps and porcelain crabs so didnt want to take a chance.

 

[Azurel]

Well that's a good point to....Either way you had to do what you had to do....

 

[surfn]

dude, you hit the jackpot!!

i'd love to buy a zoa rock and come home with all of those critters!

for the record, mantis shrimp are fine in coral tanks. granted, they may frag some things you dont want fragged...but they wont kill any corals. and only the largest mantis shrimp will go after fish (unless we are talking small gobies).

....but yeah, not sure any of those critters would be safe for a tank with sexy shrimp and porcelain crabs.

you should have thrown together a small 10g or smaller tank with just live rock, and thrown all of them in there and let them duke it out. sort of a shrimp cage fight. lol

oh well, great find. if you were in the states you would have gotten all kinds of trade requests to get those critters. more than would have paid for that zoa rock i'm sure.

btw........any chance you know what area of the ocean that zoa rock came from?



......soooooooo jealous.......

 

[berns]

hi surfn there are a few keepers who set up a species tank for a mantis, one of my lfs has a pistol/goby pair but its been there for a while now, they just seem not wanted so much here in UK.

the zoa rock was cuban

 

[twon8]

so you guys are getting cigars and zoas from cuba?