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Newreeflady
05/08/2002, 07:14 PM
Some things i've found in my tanks recently and have not been able to identify:

- weird shrimp-like critters. They range from 3/4" to 1 1/4" long, 3/4 cm to 1cm wide, have lots of legs that are short like shrimp, but not in line, but rather kinda outspread like spider legs, black eyes, clear bodies. Kinda remind me of cockroaches, but clear with black eyes.

- white curley thingys. There are a whole bunch of these, about 2mm each in size. They are shaped like the snails shells you used to crush between your thumb and forefinger as a child, kinda like a circular maze. They are white, small, round mazy things. There were first only a couple, now they are all over the back wall, looks like stars in the sky since my background is black.

- odd worm. about 2" fully expanded, width is about 1-2mm, it has lots of small filiment like yellow legs, body appears to be striped vertically along backside, color is orangy-yellowish. I saw this creature in my 10g tank at the very top of the glass, I proceeded to nudge it back to the floor, and it immediately curled up into a ball and let itself fall, then upon reaching the floor it opened back up and went back to the glass. The tip of this creatures mouth reminds me of that of a cucumber.



Any ideas?

thx,

Angela.

asmujica
05/08/2002, 07:19 PM
Newreeflady maybe this site can help:

http://www.rshimek.com/animal_identifications1.htm

I wish I could help out more but apparently I am not very good at reefkeping right now... :(

ltbt8
05/08/2002, 07:41 PM
Hi Newreeflady, I've had my share of all of these. The first one sounds like sea lice, mine came with the LR from gulf-view. Every night after lights out they would show up against the front glass and I just scooped them out. All gone. The second is a type of feather worm, no harm to tank. The third sounds like a couple of worms I had in my 10g that kept eating my snails every night. Managed to get them out and haven't seen anymore.:D

GOOD LUCK!!!! and hope I'm wrong. :cool:

Newreeflady
05/08/2002, 07:50 PM
Ugh, why did I want to know?? lol!! That's terrible. It's so hard for me to get anything out of this tank, I didn't consider my short arms and body when I went for the 2ft tall tank:p Will the lice breed? That would be terrible if I were to get bitten by lice when moving stuff in the tank! Snail eating worms! I hope not!! I only have one snail in there, but am worried. I am thinking this gulf-view rock was not such a hot idea now, aptasia, sea-lice, gee what next? :*(

Thx,
Angela.

ltbt8
05/08/2002, 08:02 PM
My understanding is that they will multiply, they will stick to your fish and suck them dry. If you have fish in the tank and none of them have something on them, then they might not be sea lice. I haven't seen any bad worms in my 29g w/gulf-view LR. As for aptasia, I had 3-4 when I bought the LR then I bought 2 peppermint shrimp and they took care of them.:cool:

PS: I got bit by one sea lice and it hurt like heck!!!!:eek1:

Newreeflady
05/08/2002, 08:19 PM
Does anything eat sea-lice? My tang did have a couple spots on him, I thought they were ich, though, and bought a cleaner shrimp and kinda ignored it since my parms were all in check. He doesn't have them any longer. Now i'm worried. Do you know if there is a way to gather them into one corner, like with light or something? Or a predator? ugh! I need a digital camera!!

thx,
Angela.

ltbt8
05/09/2002, 05:43 AM
There's nothing that I know of that eats them. If your tang is doing good, I wouldn't worry. From my understanding, they stick to the fish suck it's blood and burrow into the fish and lay eggs. A pic would be nice.:cool:

karlas
05/09/2002, 07:23 AM
before you start panicking you could check out some more stuff here

hitchiker faq (http://www.reefs.org/hhfaq/index.html)

there could be a lot of things with similar descriptions

nameless
05/09/2002, 08:12 AM
I agree with Karla. It could just as easily be mysis shrimp as 'sea lice' and a regular old bristle worm that only scavenges as a 'snail killer'. Without pics, it's very difficult to tell.

Cowman345
05/10/2002, 02:44 AM
agree... amphipods or mysis shrimp, tube worms/feather dusters, bristleworm

-dave-