Strangest thing ever on an acro

[bct15]

I seen the craziest looking critter last night on a carduus colony, I thought I got pictures of it last night but my phone did not save them so I'll have to give a description and see if you guys can ID it and give advice. The colony is brown with bright green polyps, and I gav a small piece that broke off in shipping to my brother an his is turning purple while mine is staying brown.

It was about an inch to an inch and a half in total size, had several very long skinny legs (like a daddy long leg). It was very very skinny and moved around really slow. It reached from branch to branch with a single leg and would feel around the water column. It had two eyes that were highly reflective, and were really far apart, the eyes looked like they were floating in front of it and not attached to it. It had what looked like a long skinny body.

I looked up sea spiders last night and it kind of resembled one, but im not positive and can't find any decent pics. If someone has a good pic I could look at that would be good. How terrible are they if that is what it is? I don't see anything today, and don't see any damage or web looking things anywhere near the acro. In that area some of my zoas have been slowly melting, and I have been having zoa colonies randomly either away (the polyps get bright colored an start shrinking) from time...maybe this is the culprit. How would I go about catching this thing if it killing my zoas? The acro I seen it in is literally touching the Zoa colony.

Is there anything else that fits this description? It literally looked like one of those really wired creatures that are on the videos filmed at super deep depths where light never reaches or some sort of alien life form.


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[Zack]

Sounds crazy I would love to see a pic! Snap one tonight bro!

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[bct15]

Doing a little more research I think it is a pycnogonid or sea spider. The anatomy diagram of a sea spider on Wikipedia describes it pretty well. Now that I think it is a sea spider how do I deal with it?

Is there any natural predators for it?

Should I go for manual removal?

Is it after my zoas, sps, or just a scavenger (I guess there is no real way to tell without catching it and observing it in a closed environment that I can watch it closely)?

If I seen this one should I expect to see lots more?

I check my tank and feed my eel and corals often an night and never seen one before.


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[Zoanthids Verified Sponsor]

Get it out!

 

[-Logzor]

These are what you saw...seriously they match your description perfectly.

[video=youtube;oyVJsg0XIIk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyVJsg0XIIk[/video]

In all seriousness, that sounds very strange, I can't wait to see pictures if you can capture them!

 

[stylaster]

sea spider get it out they are coral predators and they reproduce fast! Revive does a good job of killing them. I would recommend dipping your sps. Manual removal is hard. Usually they hide under the corals during the day. If you check out your tank at night with a bright flashlight im sure you will spot a lot more of them. They are delicate you can kill them just by smashing them, but for everyone you see there are others hiding. With them being translucent they are hard to spot unless they move.

 

[Connie]

Oh man! I just looked up an image. That's creepy! I hope you can get him out.

 

[bct15]

That is them logzor, I actually think that is a video of my tank.

Here is a pic if the acro colony is seen it in last night.

And here you can see a rock that was covered in zoas that is slowly becoming empty

I think it may be a Zoa predator, I'm gonna look again tonight an catch it hopefully. Or all of them.


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[bct15]

Well I got it last night, this thing is so hard to see and get a pic of with my iPhone. This thing is crazy, it swims, crawls, walks on two legs, and rolls around in a ball... It's next to invisible too. I can't get a good shot of its eyes though, they are to small. It's legs are about the diameter of a hair.

Here is zoomed out so you can see how difficult it is to see

Here it is all balled up

And here is a couple more shots

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[Reef Pets]

Certainly a sea spider. There are over 1000 species of them. Some are harmful to coral while others are not. But, to be safe of course you would not want to place it in your reef. Some people have had luck with lined wrasse eating them while other people sat nothing will eat them because they only move around at night in the reef tank.