Creatures

[duke12]

I have two questions.
1. There's a creature in my 100 lbs. live Fiji sand bed that moves really fast and stops. He was up against the glass so I could see he was about half an inch long, and kind of gray. When he moved it looked like bugs bunny moving under the gravel. He would move about two or three inches and then stop.

2. There are tiny little white guys, probably a hundred of them, about 3/4 of a milimeter long they were jumping around my star polyps, but weren't hurting them. Baby amphipods?

[dark horge]

Hi Duke!

No.1 worries me, as the movement and choice of dwelling suggests a sizable isopod. Ron Shimek has lots of praise for the predatory fierceness of Cirolanid isopods --it is a sorry fish that has the bad luck to have them latch onto it. The general idea is to catch and remove the little beast --not an easy trick.

No.2 sounds like ordinary copepods. Their main contributions to a reeftank is their planktonic larvae and their very own selves, as live food. Good guys.

Caveat: I'm going by textual descript alone, so, hey, I could be wrong!

horge


[This message has been edited by dark horge (edited 01-28-2001).]