what would you do?

[ntswift]

I'm kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place and I want to know what you guys would do. I know I have a bad crab in my tank because I saw him one day and though oh thats cool but didnt think anything of him until the next day. I looked him up online and apparently he is a gorilla crab. Anyway since then I havent seen him, just his exoskeleton that he sheds. I also have a pretty good bristleworm problem. I have snails getting eaten and hermits getting eaten as well. I had one clam drilled by a bristleworm allegedly. I saw the hole down where the foot was and little tiny bristleworm coming out of it. Something else may have caused it to die and the worm may have just been eating it. I dont know for sure. Anyway my question is, I'm getting ready to transfer tanks to a 75 gal and I dont want anything to hitchhike over to the new tank, so I was wondering should I dip my rock into a super salinity solution or a freshwater solution and hopefully kill the worms and the crab? I'm going to get one of those worm traps in the mean time to catch as many as I can until then. The only thing I am worried about from doing the dips is all the live stuff on my rocks. I have corals on just about all of my rocks now and I really don't want to kill them but if its for the greater good then I guess I'll have to do it. I'm going to try one of the crab traps as well but my main worry is getting rid of the worms. Any other suggestions would be awesome as well! Sorry for the long post. Thanks a ton!

 

[melosu58]

The crab you can catch by puttig a glass in your tank with some food in it and have it tilted so he can walk in but he cant walk out. The bristle worms can be taken care of by getting a six line wrasse.

 

[Devilishturtles]

Agreed w/ melosu. But if that isn't an appealing option (adding another fish) use a hyposalinity dip as opposed to a freshwater dip. Corals will be stressed for a bit, but they will make it considering they are healthy now.

 

[roka64]

O think the bristle worms are making a meal of the already dead/sick clam. I agree with the glass trick. Keep us posted!

 

[ntswift]

Well the only problem with the six line wrasse is that I have a leopard wrasse and I've heard that the six lines will harass them. Plus, the fact that they eat pods might wiped out my population before it can start. I should have about 180lbs of LR so hopefully there will be plenty of places to hide. Yes, I do think that they were making a meal of an already sick clam, but I just dont get the coral. It was doing really awesome and then just boom, it started to loose its "skin" from the bottom up out of the blue. I was thinking maybe strontium so I'm going to go get that checked to hopefully rule that out. I'm going to do that later on this week. I'll let you guys know how that goes.

But if that isn't an appealing option (adding another fish) use a hyposalinity dip as opposed to a freshwater dip. Corals will be stressed for a bit, but they will make it considering they are healthy now.

That was what I was going to hopefully do. However, I've heard that crabs can be quite stubborn as well as the bristle worms when it comes to getting them out of their homes. I will try the glass trick tomorrow night and see if it works. (I have habanero juice on my hands and I cant get it off right now, so I dont think that is a good idea right now.)

 

[melosu58]

However, I've heard that crabs can be quite stubborn as well as the bristle worms when it comes to getting them out of their homes.

This is true and also some of your worms could be hiding in your substrate.

 

[ntswift]

I agree. I've decieded to leave my sand and use the sand that is in the other tank instead. I know there arent any worms in it because I dried it out for two weeks. (not on purpose) Its just fine white sand. It looks good, but I like the black sand a lot better. Plus, I really don't feel like dealing with the hastle of switching sand into the new tank. My main focus now is getting everything out of the LR without harming my corals if at all possible.