Bad hItch hikers and how to trap them?

[barbtrave]

HI below is a commenet I saw and I need to know. Today I just put 80 punds of live rock in my new tank from the Keys. From what ithis says I'm going to have creatures that need trapping or they are going to kill my fish. How dod I do this? What suggestions do you have?

depends on what u want as far as hitchhikers... dont count on them though. usually if you get rock from the keys or gulf you will end up with crabs that will slice and dice ur fish so you have to set up traps for them. if your hoping to get other hitchhikers like corals and stuff then you would need proper lighting for them to grow

 

[TCTFish]

There are traps made specifically for particular hitchhikers such as manta shrimps. Bristleworms are not a problem, but fireworms can be. Arrowcrabs are good for eating them

What you really want to do is as you start noticing things coming out from the live rock, you can identify them first. Some traps will work in one situation, but not in another.

One way of getting some of these things out of the rocks is to hang or place the rock on a bucket or something and let saltwater drip or spray on the rock to keep it wet. Any hitchhikers would come out of the rock and hopefully into the bucket below. Just a thought

 

[RMPD109]

Check out this link to help ID most hitchers.

http://www.reefs.org/hhfaq/

I would not worry about getting rid of them till they are ID and determined to be a problem. I got LR from the keys and the gulf and have not had a trap yet and have great life on my rock. I did pull out some ugly crabs though.

 

[Brad]

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater! You paid big bucks for high quality rock with lots of life on it. Nurse the rock to health in your tank and try to deal with the particular guys you want to remove later.

Any process that produces conditions bad enough that a mantis chooses to abandon ship is very likely to damage and kill all kinds of life that you can't even see. Among these ideas are the FW dip...the high salinity dip...

No one would ever tell you to take that brand new coral frag you just purchased and dip it in FW or high salinity just in case there's a bad hitch hiker hiding in it somewhere. Yet this advice seems to be mainstream when it comes to LR.

...sorry to unload....I'm a LR fanatic. It's just my opinion. I recognize that not everyone views LR the same way. Yes...bad hitch hikers can be a real pain.

 

[barbtrave]

How did you catch the crab? I'm asuming the crab wouls also injure fish?