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#1
11/01/2004, 12:55 AM
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what are these
I saw one months ago and now there are lots of em' Kinda ugly.
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#2
11/01/2004, 02:00 AM
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I would say chitons... But a picture from above would be also good.
And I'm not sure I understand how can you find them ugly. 
__________________
Life is too short to learn everything from experience. "And ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall set you free." |
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#4
11/01/2004, 09:47 AM
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I agree, chitons. Algae grazers.
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#5
11/01/2004, 10:54 AM
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they are multiplying fast , It seems they will overtake the tank.
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#6
11/01/2004, 11:21 AM
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Hi,
You will find out a bit about them in this article I wrote a few years ago. In general, they are slow growing and slow reproducing. I suspect you had a "herd" of them on some rock you added a while back, and now they have moved to places where they are more visible. |
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#7
11/01/2004, 02:53 PM
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Hi Doc,
I set up a new tank in August. I added some LR (about 25 pounds in a 34 gallon tank), let it cycle for a couple of weeks, and turned on the lights. Within days, a bunch of algae showed up -- cyano, hair, ulva, etc.. After the algae peaked, I started to see a few chitons. Within a couple weeks, they had destroyed the hair algae. On the glass, you could actually see a chiton skitter over to a patch, settle down, and dismantle it. Now that the hair's gone, they seem to have moved onto the macro algae and their numbers have expolded. The other day, I counted at least 50 on the glass, ranging in size from a couple mm to 7 or 8mm. And they are all over the rock and sand. They don't seem to go for film algae, regular ol' pink coralline, or cyano, however. I'm just about to unleash some into my 20 to see if they have a taste for caulerpa ...  Fascinating little guys. FWIW, the LR was "Bali", which I suppose means it came from Indonesia, but the LR was held in a tank with some typical Walt Smith Fiji rock. |
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#8
11/01/2004, 02:58 PM
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Hi,
Interesting. There are a few of these that are "brooders." The females "nest" on the eggs until they hatch. These have relatively short larval times and would lend themselves to "blooming" as yours seem to have done. Can you post an image or three (at least one good crisp top shot, and a good crisp underside shot would be good ones to start with)? If so, I might be able to get some sort of identification done on them. |
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#10
11/01/2004, 03:28 PM
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Quote:
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#12
11/01/2004, 04:45 PM
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Hi,
Chitons are adapted for lives on hard surfaces. They generally will not be found on soft sediment surfaces. The only exception to this that I know of is the gumboot chiton of the Pacific NW, which I have found a hundred meters or more from the nearest rocks. |
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#13
11/02/2004, 11:54 AM
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Here's a pic of some of mine.
These guys are ... tough to get a photo of. The can move quickly, especially after they've been turkey bastered into a dish. And they're small enough, 3 mm tops for these ones, that my camera can't cleanly focus on them to get a pic of their underside. For that matter, it doesn't do a great job focusing on their tops What I do know about them: They are Indo-Pacific Able to breed profusely Can move very quickly by "hopping" Are absolute evil on hair algae, but will also eat macro I am getting curious about these guys. Maybe I could send you some samples? Is there anything special I'd have to do to get some samples to you cross-border (I'm in Toronto)? 
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#14
11/02/2004, 12:42 PM
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Hi Masoch,
The animals you have imaged are not chitons, they are sphaeromatid isopods. You can find out a bit about them by reading this article. |
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