Some help with TBS live rock

[Tired]

While I'm throwing in things I've forgotten to say: there's no rush on removing small gorilla crabs, or, really, small mantises. They have to get big to cause any real problems.

Edit: or, ha! Bait!

 

[Quintin]

LOL, i just wanted to say that good or bad, that is quite impressive!
I've set up a bunch of tanks from large to small with TBS rock. Some rock that was fairly new/young and other rock that had been down there for many years. Small pieces to almost boulder sized. I've had a range of critters, the worst was a large stone crab. I've had my share of mantis, but even on the biggest tank with the oldest rock, i still only had 3. Never even knew there were octopus!

I'm sorry I can't answer your question since I've never been in this situation but wow. Super interesting. Hopefully you can at least knock down the mantis population with some suggestions here. Whelks you can pull out when you see them, same for gorillas, isopods will age out rather quickly. I have a mantis in my current tank, just the one as far as i've seen, and in the more than 1 year that I've had the tank running, this is the first time that a mantis hasn't come fully out looking for food, allowing me to grab him. That little sucker is just continuing to enjoy the free escargot!

lol, if it was just the one mantis, I would give him a free ride. They max out at about 2” and on their own won’t do a lot of damage.

But a gang of them ranging is size can most certainly go on a rampage.

It’s all par for the course, though.
Wouldn’t be much fun if we just put rock in had zero issues to deal with. Keeps me learning and endless hours of free time reading up on things.

Makes the hobby so much more interesting than just fighting dinos and green hair algae.

 

[JM302]

Yup, caught one of them giving my stylophora tester a hair cut. Managed to take him out pretty easily. Have a pair of 22” tweezers I use for that job.

I must be really slow.. LOL - I think I ended up catching 2 with tweezers. I used a tall glass leaned up on rock and put a silverside in the bottom. Cut a piece of eggcrate to fit tightly in the glass to hold the silverside in.

 

[Quintin]

LOL, i just wanted to say that good or bad, that is quite impressive!
I've set up a bunch of tanks from large to small with TBS rock. Some rock that was fairly new/young and other rock that had been down there for many years. Small pieces to almost boulder sized. I've had a range of critters, the worst was a large stone crab. I've had my share of mantis, but even on the biggest tank with the oldest rock, i still only had 3. Never even knew there were octopus!

I'm sorry I can't answer your question since I've never been in this situation but wow. Super interesting. Hopefully you can at least knock down the mantis population with some suggestions here. Whelks you can pull out when you see them, same for gorillas, isopods will age out rather quickly. I have a mantis in my current tank, just the one as far as i've seen, and in the more than 1 year that I've had the tank running, this is the first time that a mantis hasn't come fully out looking for food, allowing me to grab him. That little sucker is just continuing to enjoy the free escargot!

I’ve been told a customer in Nebraska had a clutch of 60 hatch in his tank.

 

[d2mini]

I must be really slow.. LOL - I think I ended up catching 2 with tweezers. I used a tall glass leaned up on rock and put a silverside in the bottom. Cut a piece of eggcrate to fit tightly in the glass to hold the silverside in.

This is one of my most used reefing tools.
Lower in slowly, using two hands... get real close... then SLAM them shut! LOL

https://amzn.to/48WYje8

 

[X-37B]

I’m debating doing a hyper salinity dip this weekend but don’t want to shoot myself in the foot by removing both friend and foe from the rock.

I have so many good things on the rock that really come alive at night, it would be a real shame to loose all of that.

So still up in the air on what to do.

Get a six line wrasse to catch and eat the small ones or perhaps a copper band?

Else it may be bottle traps but you never gonna get them all.

Most nights after lights out, I spend about an hour with a red torch removing things - plenty of whelks, some Eunice worms, got a couple of crabs but even the really small ones hold on for dear life it’s nearly impossible to catch them.

As for the possible octopi running around.
You never gonna see any of them until they quite a lot bigger and can do some serious damage.

Here is a sugestion. Pull 1 rock and give it a dip. Use a white bucket or similar.
You can put the good stuff back and just remove what you dont want.
Sometimes I will suspend the rock in the bucket just below some tank water.
Many things will jump off the rock into the bucket.
About 10 min will do and it wont have much effect on the good life from my past experience.
Anyway start with one and evaluate.
I removed all rock in a established frag system sometime ago to remove bubble aglae.
I thought I had 3-4 emerald crabs.
Their were over 12 as I remember.
I just scooped them up and back they went. Their was several peppermint shirmp I had thought were dead along time ago.
Keep us posted.

 

[Quintin]

Here is a sugestion. Pull 1 rock and give it a dip. Use a white bucket or similar.
You can put the good stuff back and just remove what you dont want.
Sometimes I will suspend the rock in the bucket just below some tank water.
Many things will jump off the rock into the bucket.
About 10 min will do and it wont have much effect on the good life from my past experience.
Anyway start with one and evaluate.
I removed all rock in a established frag system sometime ago to remove bubble aglae.
I thought I had 3-4 emerald crabs.
Their were over 12 as I remember.
I just scooped them up and back they went. Their was several peppermint shirmp I had thought were dead along time ago.
Keep us posted.

Thanks for the info.

The rock has a lot of tunicates, sea squirts, phyllangia americana, tube coral, limpets, bi-valves, glass anonome and feather worms to name but a few.

Don’t wanna damage or destroy those.
I know they usually dissipate over time as many of those species find it hard to survive in a typical tank due to nutrient deficiencies but don’t want to speed that process along.

As suggested, try with one rock first and see what falls off sounds like a good idea as a tester but gonna have to pull it in any case to see what happened to the octopus eggs.

 

[Tired]

I still have a scattering of tunicates/sea squirts (same animal), feather worms, and bivalves on my rock after over a year. Decent feeding helps, and smaller ones have a better shot at staying fed. You might try taking the rock out of the water and sort of shaking/tapping it for a bit to scare everything that can close up into closing up, so that your tunicates and such will hopefully be less likely to take in over-salty water.

Or, honestly, I'd still go with traps, tongs, and time. A frag rack or two on the glass will let you safely add corals, since gorilla crabs can't climb clean glass.

 

[jttide]

Here is a sugestion. Pull 1 rock and give it a dip. Use a white bucket or similar.
You can put the good stuff back and just remove what you dont want.
Sometimes I will suspend the rock in the bucket just below some tank water.
Many things will jump off the rock into the bucket.
About 10 min will do and it wont have much effect on the good life from my past experience.
Anyway start with one and evaluate.
I removed all rock in a established frag system sometime ago to remove bubble aglae.
I thought I had 3-4 emerald crabs.
Their were over 12 as I remember.
I just scooped them up and back they went. Their was several peppermint shirmp I had thought were dead along time ago.
Keep us posted.

This is a great idea! Thank you for sharing this,it will be helpful to many I’m sure

 

[Quintin]

I still have a scattering of tunicates/sea squirts (same animal), feather worms, and bivalves on my rock after over a year. Decent feeding helps, and smaller ones have a better shot at staying fed. You might try taking the rock out of the water and sort of shaking/tapping it for a bit to scare everything that can close up into closing up, so that your tunicates and such will hopefully be less likely to take in over-salty water.

Or, honestly, I'd still go with traps, tongs, and time. A frag rack or two on the glass will let you safely add corals, since gorilla crabs can't climb clean glass.

I’ve also read up on seltzer water.
But instead of doing it with fresh water, I have a soda stream that I could probably use to carbonate salt water.

Suspect it’s the carbonate bubbles more than anything that gets things jumping off the rocks.

But I gotta run this one by the Mrs first.

 

[Quintin]

I still have a scattering of tunicates/sea squirts (same animal), feather worms, and bivalves on my rock after over a year. Decent feeding helps, and smaller ones have a better shot at staying fed. You might try taking the rock out of the water and sort of shaking/tapping it for a bit to scare everything that can close up into closing up, so that your tunicates and such will hopefully be less likely to take in over-salty water.

Or, honestly, I'd still go with traps, tongs, and time. A frag rack or two on the glass will let you safely add corals, since gorilla crabs can't climb clean glass.

I’ve also read up on seltzer water.
But instead of doing it with fresh water, I have a soda stream that I could probably use to carbonate salt water.

Suspect it’s the carbonate bubbles more than anything that gets things jumping off the rocks.

But I gotta run this one by the Mrs as mixing kitchen utensils with the aquarium is probably a fine line…

 

[JM302]

One thing I should have added - yes I ended up with more than 40 gorilla crabs, but I can honestly say there was no obvious impact to my tank - at all. I know they have a bad rap, and I know there are many types of gorilla crabs, but in my case they just merely existed. I wouldn't have them if given the choice and I worked on removing them for 7+ months... but honestly a little bit of patience and diligence goes a long way.

I actually had one conditioned to come out and play when the red flashlight came on. He would always hang between two rocks where I could not get him. I don't kid when I say he'd get excited and do little backflips and stuff... Probably why he's living in the sump now and wasn't speared =p

 

[Quintin]

As promised here is a picture of one of the mantis’s in the tank. This guy has a bunker setup right in the front of the tank and green in colour, so fairly easy to see compared to the bigger ones hiding under the rocks in the back. Now that I know he’s there.

This one is probably about 3 to 4mm wide and guessing no more than 20mm long and very skittish.

Used the flipper magnifying glass to help take these pictures and still had to put the camera on 5x zoom.

Couldn’t photograph more than the eyes as it’s a quick little bugger.

 

[CMMorgan]

As promised here is a picture of one of the mantis’s in the tank. This guy has a bunker setup right in the front of the tank and green in colour, so fairly easy to see compared to the bigger ones hiding under the rocks in the back. Now that I know he’s there.

This one is probably about 3 to 4mm wide and guessing no more than 20mm long and very skittish.

Used the flipper magnifying glass to help take these pictures and still had to put the camera on 5x zoom.

Couldn’t photograph more than the eyes as it’s a quick little bugger.

He's cute! He looks like Gonzo from the muppets.

 

[mikey1958]

Hi guys.

Got some really great live rock from TBS full of life, sponges, micro brittle stars, ect.

But have a problem with a number of undesirables that also arrived on the rock.

Upon initial inspection I removed an octopus, 2 mantis shrimp, a couple of gorilla and decorator crabs…. And some whelks.

However, now that the rock is in the tank and cycling, I found a couple other things.
A clutch of octopus eggs- which can easily be removed.

But….
From what I can see it looks like 20+ mantis shrimps ranging in sizes from 0.5 inches to another big one at 2 inches. Also suspect some more nasty crabs as well as the initial cleanup grew is all but wiped out in less than 4 days.

Any suggestions on how to get these critters off the rock?

Obviously, I will take the rock out again and inspect by hand but don’t want to do anything as drastic as a fresh water dip as that is gonna kill a lot of beneficial flora and fauna as well.

Any suggestions and advice welcomed.

This may seem a little extreme but it's effective...Fill a five gallon bucket with fresh water and drop the rocks in. it doesn't take but about 5 minutes and most of the nasties will bail out of rock..Then agitate the rock around around vigorously for a minute or 2 and the rest of the crabs should come out too..
if any stars or good critters come off the rock try to moon recover them quickly and put them in a q tank

 

[WalkerLovesTheOcean]

This may seem a little extreme but it's effective...Fill a five gallon bucket with fresh water and drop the rocks in. it doesn't take but about 5 minutes and most of the nasties will bail out of rock..Then agitate the rock around around vigorously for a minute or 2 and the rest of the crabs should come out too..
if any stars or good critters come off the rock try to moon recover them quickly and put them in a q tank

This is veryyy risky, but it will definitely work at getting every live aspect off of that rock.

 

[Fish Fan]

Wow, I am blown away by this post, and I'm not sure you had good luck or bad lol!

I recently (November 13th 2023) tried some TBS live rock and sand, only around 15 pounds each, and I am amazed at the critters I received with my order. Although only a small order, I got a lot of beneficial hitchhikers but almost no unwanted hitchhikers. I have so far killed off one Aptasia, and that's it. I do have all kinds of algae, but nothing is out of control. I'm very happy with my TBS order, and would recommended them for sure.

When I placed my order I specifically requested and paid for an N. wennerae Florida mantis and I really like the little spud. He has his own 10 gallon, and while maybe not as impressive as the larger peacock mantis, I enjoy feeding him chunks of shrimp or scallop from forceps, or free feeding frozen mysis or even flaked food and watching him zip about the rock stack grabbing at food that floats by. He is almost never fully out of the rock stack, but I frequently see him poking out of the rock looking at me.... I think he thinks he's smarter than me.... he's probably right.... But if you or anyone else would want to keep what I assume has to be an N. wennerae mantis, they do make for fun critters to keep.

An octopus for real?? That is like the lottery, I have been wanting an octopus for over 30 years, which is how I know that if I had happened to receive one, I wouldn't have been able to care for it. As others have mentioned, if it was the egg layer (and it might not be!) it's definitely at the end of its unfortunately short life cycle. Glad you were able to rehome her either way

EDIT: I'm sure most of you have seen this or something like it in the past. What cool critters Octopuses are. If these dudes could write stuff down and pass it along to the next generation of Octopuses, we'd all be speaking Octo right now.

 

[Fish Fan]

This may seem a little extreme but it's effective...Fill a five gallon bucket with fresh water and drop the rocks in. it doesn't take but about 5 minutes and most of the nasties will bail out of rock..Then agitate the rock around around vigorously for a minute or 2 and the rest of the crabs should come out too..
if any stars or good critters come off the rock try to moon recover them quickly and put them in a q tank

I'm FAR from an expert, but it seems to me that this would thrust many delicate organisms into immediate osmotic shock, and cause more die off than it would help. Are you specifically talking about aquacultured live rock from places like Tampa Bay Saltwater that comes teeming with life? Can you link to another post supporting this? I'm genuinely asking. Thank you for your help!

 

[Tired]

I'm FAR from an expert, but it seems to me that this would thrust many delicate organisms into immediate osmotic shock, and cause more die off than it would help. Are you specifically talking about aquacultured live rock from places like Tampa Bay Saltwater that comes teeming with life? Can you link to another post supporting this? I'm genuinely asking. Thank you for your help!

That's going to kill a lot of things, yeah. It'll work out fine if you want the live rock exclusively for algae and bacteria (which are admittedly the most important parts), but if you like all the macroorganisms, you should probably not do that. Pretty sure TBS says somewhere on their site not to do it.

Gorilla crabs and mantis shrimp are, IMO, just not enough of a problem to beat up your rock that way. I've got a couple gorillas in my tank still, dime-sized and hurting nothing, and I caught all the rest out pretty easily.

 

[JM302]

Literally all that's needed is patience - and that's free. Agree that all these methods will work to rid any pests, but if you're spending the $$ to get live rock shipped wet with all the good stuff, doing anything besides putting them in properly heated ~1.026sg water is contradictory to what you just paid for.

IMO, anyone that gets TBS or equivalent live rock and dips it in any manner.... probably should have gone the dry rock route. I mean no disrespect with that statement.