Bi-Weekly Discussion of the Week: Hitchhikers

[Geoff]

lets talk about all those freebies you get on LR. the good, the bad, the nasty, and the downright ugly.

G~

[Eric P]

I have gotten some real good LR in the LFS but the one thing that kills me is aptasia. I have spent so much time keeping this stuff under control it sometimes makes me wonder if it is worth the trouble. I have it very much under control but if I go on vacation for a week or two when I get home I spend hours working to inject each one with a solution of kalkwasser and hot water. How about some others methods on dealing with this nusance.
Eric...

[Paradox]

Most of my hitchhikers have been nuisances...

Ive had..
aptasia - finnally almost controlled by a 10 pack of pep shrimps =)
Mojanos - No idea what to do about these yet
Harry Legged Crabs - Removed
Baby Mantis Shrimp - Removed
Bubble ALgae - Hand Removed from most rocks (Almost all gone)

Fun Hitchhikers:

Couple Zoo Polyps, mushrooms, and nice yellow sponge.


Eric, I tried throwing a couple pepermint shrimps in my tank and they just dissapeared. (Might have fell victem to the mantis shrimp). I later bought a group of 10 of them and they have almost cleaned my whole tank of aptasia.

[ruhspolostar]

hmmm.........hitchhikers........I didn't get tomany of those

-got a baby bivalve
-some hair algae
-lots of copepods and amphiapods
-feather dusters (little)
-some type of transparent glass sponge???
-sea squirts (ugly)
-encrusting sponge
-coral line algae (blue and green)

-I didn't get anything good really but I didn't get anything bad either so its a fair price to pay, huh?

"Live Long and Prosper"

-#8



-ADAM

[yardboy]

My original batch of live rock had very few hitchhikers, corralline and bacteria. Seems most of my problems have come on coral and the rock it's attached to. Bubble algae, aiptasia, hair algae, majano, a coral eating snail, and a very large soft coral eating nudibranch that I seem to have removed before he bred or did major damage to my corals.

[tims]

so far i have had only on aptaisa,and what a pain trying to get him. he found a real nice crevase in my figi rock.

have a really small patch of zoo's growing i think, form anther piece of LR i bought a while back. it was one of those l"liked the shape and should fit nicly" piece.

starting to see bunches of feather dusters starting to "pop" out of the Figi LR now.

[icebear]

Originally posted by yardboy
and a very large soft coral eating nudibranch that I seem to have removed before he bred or did major damage to my corals.

i got one of those, it ate my speckled leather from the bottom up...didn't notice till it was far too late

i've had algae eating crabs that have spontaneously croaked
aiptasia- that i nuked
i have little white limpets everywhere now
and these tiny round snails with tiger markings, not sundials, they seem to eat algae
the featherdusters i have are all from my LR
and i got some green buttons....

[Geoff]

i am not a big fan of any crustacean hitchhiker. the jury is still out on the few acro crabs that i have now.

i have had my share of mantis shrimps in my early days when most of the LR came from the carribean. i used to let the LR sit over night in stagnant water just to get the little buggers to come out and get more oxygen.

G~

[Geoff]

what are the most beneficial hitchhikers we get from out LR?

G~

[Eric P]

I would say the most beneficial ones I have gotten are isopods and small brittle stars. I also got a piece that started growing some nice polyps on it. I didn't see them when i got it but there must have been a small frag on it. They are now spreading around quite a bit.
Eric...

[tims]

i just picked up a nice size LR at 3$ apound. it had plants on it a few smallpieces not sure what they are yet but looking them up...
also a crop of zoe's.. a snail climbed out .. small(<1/4 inch) black and yellow striping) looking him up too...

had a small crop of Zoe's start on another piece of LR when i first started the tank, along with a buch of feather dusters...
that's it so far....but each day i find something new

[Chip Wick]

Starting up my tank with live rock from Tampa Bay Saltwater (aquacultured LR in the gulf de mehico), I had more freakin' hitchhikers than anything else. Many of them bad, i.e. mantis shrimps, mud crabs, a eunice spp. bristleworm that got to be 3 feet long before I tore down the whole tank to get it out, some algae eating crabs (good? Bad? who knows?), and a really cool looking nudibranch (jet black with an electric blue stripe) that we saw only once and never again. Also tons of arcmussels and oysters that mostly died off after a year or so (a couple of them are still hanging on). Never had too much trouble with aptasia, the kalk injections always kept them under control. Most beneficial? Probably the billions of bacteria living in the rock! Never really got anything on the rocks that corals came with, thank goodness, because I've finally managed to get rid of everything else that I didn't like.

[wasabi]

i spent six months trying to rid my tank of a beautiful 3 inch green mantis, and about five hairy crabs.(bottle traps,fancy store bought traps, homeade spears,poisons,)all to no avail.2 years later the mantis is still in my tank along with 2 of the hairy crabs... i have yet to have a problem. i still want that sucker dead.

[rickswika]

I've seen several mollusks moving around in my tank. One baby with a yellow shell and another about an inch long with a black shell. They must have come on the live rock. I also see a baby serpant star fish in my tank whose origin is unknown.

[Geoff]

i find the most beneficial hitchhikers i get are the brittle stars. i also seem to get some spaghetti worms.

i not gotten any hitchhiking coral in a while.

G~