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.
----------------------------------------------------------------
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.
----------------------------------------------------------------
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.
