Alien Stow Away

[DadE02]

I have been trying to grab a photo of this stow away for months, but he is too fast. Today, I was able to get a video (1sec) of him playing in the holes of my live rock.

Can anyone tell me what this little guy is and if he is a friendly stow away for my reef tank?

 

[54seaweed]

which hole is he in I don't see anything that stands out then I look at the second pict I see what loos like a antenna , can you describe the critter some and how big is it , do you hear any clicking sounds coming from the tank ,

 

[DadE02]

He is the black guy in the right hole on the first photo (by the zoa coral).

The second photo only shows his back-end as he scampered into the top left hole.

I have a quick video of him, but don't know how to upload it as the video is 14MB.

 

[DadE02]

He is black, about 1.5" long. I do hear clicking sound; however, I am not sure if it is from this little guy or the pistol shrimp that I have.

 

[Sniperhank]

The clicking will be from the pistol shrimp. The black guy looks like an elephant slug.

 

[54seaweed]

still not 100% on the Id of this critter as it is hard to get a good view ,
it's kind of hard to see but I have a hunch it may be a mantice shrimp , place a small chunk of shrimp on a skewer to lure him out so you can get a better view for a positive ID ,

this is what a mantice shrimp looks like , something you would want to remove if it is

If he looks like this you have 2 options for removal , your first option is a glass tilted 3/4 of the way baited with a piece of shrimp at the bottom ,

your second option remove the entire rock and do a freshwater dip he should come running out , this will also ensure theirs nothing else hidden in that rock ,

I can only hope it's not a mantice but for some odd reason I have a gut feeling it is

hopefully Hank has a better eye with a elephant slug
this is what they look like

keep us up to date either way

Save​

 

[DadE02]

Oh no...I have a feeling the mantice shrimp photo looks like the little bugger I have in the tank.

Is it dangerous to the other habitants?

 

[54seaweed]

not something you want in your tank as it will feast on everything it catches
once they start to get big fish will slowly disappear I had a gut feeling it was .
I would pull the rock soak it in freshwater in a bucket just be sure he is in the rock you pull , he will jump out of the rock prob fall to bottom of bucket , use a set of prongs to pick him up as he can punch and break a finger or 2 .

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forum...moving-mantis-shrimp-etc-from-lr-54662-2.html

 

[DadE02]

The rock has corals growing on it. Wouldn't the fresh water hurt the corals?

Thanks for the help.

 

[Sniperhank]

I'd think twice before acting until you are 100% sure it is a mantis. In all of the years I have been involved with saltwater and a member of this forum, I have only ever seen of one positive mantis hitchhiker but hundreds of pistol shrimps.

 

[54seaweed]

you may want to try the bottle / glass trap first
use fresh water dip as a last resort

 

[Autumnsky]

Love a good Mystery, I couldn't see a thing in the pic. Cool either way, but you wouldn't want the thing to eat your stock if it is a Mantis. The black thing, an eel?

Had heard many good things about this trap if your DIY doesn't work.
Marine Depot Fish Trap - Small - Marine Depot

 

[DadE02]

I managed to crop and compress the video so that you could see the little critter in motion.

What do you guys think?http://cloud.tapatalk.com/s/58ead67b6c3c1/videocompress-037-VID_20170409_144055~2.mp4

 

[Nils]

That looks like a mantis shrimp to me. A tiny one, but you still want to get it out.
An excuse to set up a nano tank.

 

[TMaier]

I had one in my reef decade+ ago. Never saw anything but his eyes and hammers glowing in the dark with a flashlight. Never got him out. Found his body when we lost the tank due to 3 day power outage.