Show us your hitchhikers!

Tommy Gun

Hello fellow fish addicts!

I thought it would not only be cool, but useful if we could compile a bunch of pictures of our hitchhikers and their identities - or to help verify identities. In fact, my hope would be that this thread might someday turn into a 'hitchhiker library' - but I will leave it up to this forum's mods to decided if this thread should be a sticky or not.

With that being said....here are some of my hitchhikers:
(Please feel absolutely free to correct me on anything I am wrong about...which I am sure I will be in some cases)
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Bristle Worms

Here is a picture of one of the first bristleworms I found in my 90 gallon tank.....you can see the algae that I could not easily reach because that tank is pretty tall:

And another one:




It is my understanding that these hitchhikers often get a bad rap because they are found on dead livestock, leading us to assume that they killed the fish. However, in reality they are great detritavores and can be considered as benificial. I have also read/head a lot about these worms having the ability to sting you if you pick them up - but I am not sure about that since I used to pick them up all the time (before I read that). Their population can be indirectly controlled by reducing the amount of food stuffs in the tank (i.e. not overfeeding).
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Spionid Worms

Here is a picture of what I believe are Spionid Worms, another hitchhiker that is usually considered to be benificial for their ability to pick foodstuffs out of the water column and in the vacinity of their tubes. In this case, I can only see them at night time because the mushrooms would cover them during the day. If you look closely, you will see the worm's "feelers" sticking up:


For the record, the red spots are coralline algae, not red slime
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Tommy Gun

Zoanthids/Polyps

Sometimes you may also find hitchhikers on live rock that many of us would pay a lot of money for. for example:

On this peice of live rock, I found a green colonial polyp - which caused me to go back to the store and buy a large colony of the same....this rock might have spent some time in that same tank. But that is not all.....

The very first coral I ever had was actually this mushroom coral (it is severely bleached out in this picture...I didn't know it was there)


Unfortunately, it never regained any color and later died.
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Asterina Starfish

Another hitchhiker that someone might otherwise pay money for would be the various starfish that can be found. However, it seems as though these starfish are not always as symmetrical as the 'traditional' stars that you might buy and one can have more or less arms than another. Additionally, so far it seems as though mine are not going to grow very large....with my biggest one being about the size of a quarter. These starfish are generally considered to be beneficial; however, some may pose a threat to corals....so, if you notice some hanging out on your corals, you may want to remove them, or at least keep a good eye on them:


I also have quite a few "baby brittle stars" that are on my live rock....although they are too small to get a picture of. According to my resource, these brittle stars are also viewed as being beneficial scavengers as well - but they will remain much smaller than the brittle stars you would buy at a store.
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Crabs

One of the reasons that live rock is so beneficial to us is the fact that it is extremely porous, providing more surface area for beneficial bacteria, and areas for other forms of life to protect itself within. In fact, in some of the larger crevices of live rock, you may find hitchhikers as large as a crab hiding out; just like this hairy crab I found in mine (watch closely in the middle of the screen to see it eating):
http://s96.photobucket.com/albums/l1...t=Babycrab.flv

True, I do have a few emerald crabs in my tank as well, but I can tell that this one is different because it does not have the smooth exoskeleton of the emerald crab and the ends of its claws are very sharp where as an emerald crab claw has more of a blunt end....and of course, it is not green like my other crabs. With that being said, these crabs can be beneficial, but can also pose a threat to other inverts in the tank that you might want to keep if they are not finding enough food and may be stealing food from the livestock you have intentionally placed in the tank. So far I have found no reason to remove this crab (I believe I have three of them actually), but now that I am aware of them, I have been keeping an eye on them.

Tommy Gun

Misc. Sponges

There are, in fact, a large number of sponges that can be found on live rock and I am sure the following pictures only shows a very small number of them. These sponges generally do not appear right away, or if they do, usually die off unless you managed to move your live rock from tank to tank without ever exposing it to air - which is detrimental to the sponges because the air can become trapped in their delicate bodies, restricting the movement of food (they are filter feeders). Here are the pictures of sponges, or what I believe are all sponges, that I have found thus far:

Tommy Gun

Sponges...Continued




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Aiptasia Anemones

Of course, most all of us are aware of the pest anemone Aiptasia that pose a serious threat to our livestock, including corals....and I finally got some good pictures and videos of what I am praying are the last three in my tank. There are two big tell-tale signs that what you are looking at is an Aiptasia; the first being the fact that they are VERY quick to shrink away or seemingly dissapear when you touch them, and the other one depends on if the anemone is a male or female and for that reason, watch this video with your computer speakers turned up:

http://s96.photobucket.com/albums/l1...t=Aiptasia.flv

Peanut Worms

A few weeks ago I had noticed this odd little thing moving around in my tank, but only at night and after inquiring about it on FTF, was told that it is probably a peanut worm. To be honest, I cannot see what this creature looks like when it is completely retracted, but I did get this video....watch carefully for the moving worm as it retracts:
http://s96.photobucket.com/albums/l1...PeanutWorm.flv

las4444

I spotted this anemone four months after I bought this $100.00 piece of live rock. I believe it is a glass anemone. It has not reproduced to my knowledge. Research says that these can be a menace. I have been feeding it once a week and keeping a close eye on it. For the time being I will take the risk of it's presence.

This is an actual photo from my tank.

Attached Images

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	DSCF2679.JPG (192.3 KB, 13 views)

Tommy Gun

From the pictures, I would say it is a glass anemone (Aiptasia). One of the reasons they are a "menance" is because they are powerful enough to harm corals and even fish.

For the record...all of these photos I am posting are actually from my tank as well.

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Spirorbid Worms

A few months after I started my first saltwater aquarium, I found literally hundreds of these little white dots popping up all over the place and when I first asked, I was told that these were little calcium deposits from my adding too much calcium to the tank. However, I am now sure that they are simply spirorbid worms - a filter feeding animal that can cause no harm (just scrape them off when they pose an aesthetic problem)



^Extreme close up...sorry if it is fuzzy


^I find them all over my equipment that is in my tank - but never inside of it

gm333

Here are some I have had.

mojano anemones


feather dusters


urchins


spahgetti worms

Abbey

yesterday i found a baby starfish in my tank and i keep finding more and more feather dusters through out the tank. unfortuneatly i was unable to get a picture of it and it was not much bigger thank the nail on my baby finger.

Enjoihavok

Not sure if this is a polyp of the dreaded aiptasia:

Ive found about 3 scattered across the same rock just in completely different locations. They arent flat though, but at the same time not very tenticly At least to me.

Shock

Sorry to get off subject... but

enjoihavok. I would guess its aiptasia, If you do not have any peppermint shrimp, I would say pick one (or a few depending on tank size) up. They are great at eating aiptasia, (as long as they are small) I have one peppermint in my 55 gallon. I have not seen any since, but between my peppermints (when they die) I see aiptasia pop up.