Zoanthid-eating spiders

melev

melev

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I have something I'd like to show you today. I took apart my Pico tank tonight to siphon out all the detritus. My seahorses are in a hospital tank, so it contained rocks, zoos, a dendrophyllia and a cleaner shrimp. I pulled everything out and picked off any fat bristleworms, as well as any razor caulerpa that continues to spread and annoy me.

Then I found one of these. Plucked it off while being angry I'd not seen it before. Then as I added stuff back into the tank, I found a larger one!!!!!!!! It too is down the drain.

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These eat zoanthids, if you didn't know it. I'd not seen one in my tank in months, but the zoos have died off a little bit at a time. Looks like I found at least one of the reasons.
 
Marc,
I'm usually not that squeamish, but you're a better man than me... I don't think I could hold that thing on my finger while taking a picture if there was a gun to my head...
 
Brian, I kept waiting for it to rear back and then thrust its fangs into my fingertip, but I guess it was waiting for the movie role versus a few boring stills. :lol:

I'd say they eat at night, and hide by day.
 
Look for them to literally park or hug the tip of a closed zoanthid, and FYI they lay their eggs inside the zoanthid polyp. :evil:
 
Those guys are scary looking! I have been lucky enough to not find any yet, but all good things must come to an end. Now maybe those zoos can flourish again.

Good pictures BTW.
 
I found some of these on my zoos last year. I would check on the tank at night with a flashlight and find these nasties hugging the top of the polyps. I just grabbed some tweezers and started plucking.

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My pictures will never be as good as Marc's. :sad:
 
I HATE spiders! And now they may be in my safe-haven, that is just full of stinging worms and other unknown critters. I HATE spiders! They are the one thing that creeps me out!
 
I've never seen the eggs, and have been told the spiders lay them INSIDE a zoanthid polyp. The only real erradication is to set up a quarantine tank for all your zoos, and watch the tank for spiders. Once you've eliminated all of them, then you have to keep the tank running for another 3 months to make sure no babies emerge that would reinfest your reef tank.

Quite a hassle. Fortunately, the only ones I've seen were in Casper's tank, which is why I never transfer anything from there to my main reef.
 
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