Pests or not

Hi Mart,

Chitons are grazers which eat mostly algae (including corraline alga in some cases). I am not too sure if they also graze on corals or not so I would suggest that you either leave it in your display tank and keep a very close eye on it or just move it into your sump.

Have a look at a book called "Two Oceans - A guide to the marine life of South Africa". It is a good general guide to the more common marine life that you would come across along our coast.
 
Mart,

The pic I posted is of a Mantis shrimp. Have a search for them on Google 'coz there are a few species and not all will look the same as in the picture.

If what you have is one of them, you need to get it out before it grows bigger. They are fearsome predators and do not stand back for anything (except maybe for EJ's killer monster dog that attacks harmless innocent maids...hehe).
 
Thanks guys I will have a look and see if I can identify it.
 
Mart,

I remember when I set up my tank there were lots of critters that came from nowhere, some come from the LR when introduced, it is frustrating to ID them because you cant photograph them to post for an ID and where do you even begin searching online.. it is almost impossible.. that being said, what i did was really look at my corals, algae and fish to look for anything eating them or stressing them.. if all was fine I just accepted it and kept on searching. Some overseas marine sites have galleries of pics from tanks that have just been setup.. search for these galleries and try to find your chaps, it is the best way I found as you get to have a general grip of what is good or not in a tank..

Good luck

Muz
 
Does your brown worm look like this? I also had one but couldn't get an ID on it.

100_0119.jpg



Dean please put your thing away.....thank you
 
I think they could be Stomatella . Sluglike snail that is very commommon... and is as fast as a hare. They can easily be mistaken as a Nudi, but once you have seen one... it is easy to recognise there tick shaped shell and feelers.
They are beneficial grazers that you must not harm.
 
Ok but heres the wierd thing ...... my creature built itself a shute from the rock to the floor of the tank using bits of coral and stuck the coral together with what looks almost like spiders web and quite strong.
 
ok I have just got the best look at it. It is long and it does look like a worm. It has along its body little bristles like the photo sent by mille. It is brown tan brown. and it has feelers sticking out the front of its head. It is building itself another shute ( I broke the first one down) . Compared to the rest of my tank this thing is fairly big.
 
The structure is definately a chute and not a tube or a sheet which the animal is using as a cave? It sounds very much like one of the polycheate worms. Hoiw big is fairly big? 2cms, 5cms?
 
ok any idea where i can go to identify it. and is it good or bad
 
ok it is a polychaete worm ...... which one i dont know. Is it good or bad?
 
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1126155&highlight=polychaete

Eunice aphroditois, the Bobbit worm, is an aquatic predatory polychaete worm dwelling at the ocean floor at depths of approximately 10–40 m.

This organism buries its long body into an ocean bed composed of gravel, mud or corals, where it waits patiently for outside stimulus to reach one of its five antennae.

Armed with sharp claws, it is known to attack with such speeds that its prey is sometimes sliced in half. Although the worm hunts for food, it is omnivorous.

Little is known about the sexual habits and life span of this worm, but researchers hypothesize that sexual reproduction occurs at an early stage, maybe even when the worm is about 100 mm in length; this is very early, considering that these worms can grow to sizes of nearly 3 m in some cases (although most observations point to a much lower average of 1 meter) and 25 mm in diameter. A long lifespan may very well explain the size of these creatures.

The Eunicidae family of worms can be found worldwide, although warmer waters are beneficial, Eunice aphroditois has only been found in the Indo-Pacific region.
 
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