Zoa Eating Spider?

[Cole_Voeller]

Welp, I’m back with another hitchhiker problem. So I’ve had my frag fishless for 70 days, with just inverts, mushrooms, and zoa. All corals and inverts were from my main tank, since I upped the temp to 86 on the main. Since I’m nearing the end of the fishless period on my main, I lowered the temp and started putting hermits from my frag tank into the main again. In doing so, I saw something come out of a shell (or off my hand I’m not sure) and I immediately caught it. I’m inclined to believe it’s a zoa eating spider, as that’s all I basically have in the frag tank. But I’m also debating against it for an odd reason. I haven’t added anything to that tank in these 70 days, and all of the zoas have been completely fine, apart from 2 that died very early on from the change to a new tank and new lights. And these aren’t large colonies, they are all just small frags. Every single polyp in there is open. I figure that if I did have zoa eating spiders in the tank, my zoas would have been demolished months ago. I currently just have the freak in a plastic cup. Would there be any other telltale signs as to whether or not I have a zoa eating spider problem? Thanks all.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Welp, I’m back with another hitchhiker problem. So I’ve had my frag fishless for 70 days, with just inverts, mushrooms, and zoa. All corals and inverts were from my main tank, since I upped the temp to 86 on the main. Since I’m nearing the end of the fishless period on my main, I lowered the temp and started putting hermits from my frag tank into the main again. In doing so, I saw something come out of a shell (or off my hand I’m not sure) and I immediately caught it. I’m inclined to believe it’s a zoa eating spider, as that’s all I basically have in the frag tank. But I’m also debating against it for an odd reason. I haven’t added anything to that tank in these 70 days, and all of the zoas have been completely fine, apart from 2 that died very early on from the change to a new tank and new lights. And these aren’t large colonies, they are all just small frags. Every single polyp in there is open. I figure that if I did have zoa eating spiders in the tank, my zoas would have been demolished months ago. I currently just have the freak in a plastic cup. Would there be any other telltale signs as to whether or not I have a zoa eating spider problem? Thanks all.

If it’s super tiny, may be but there’s usually More and they go in and out of zoa heads but I’m leaning towards it being a sea spider called a pycnogonid

 

[Rick's Reviews]

Following and learning

 

[Rick's Reviews]

To be considered a sea spider apparently it requires 8 legs, anything less its a crab lol
Google is so funny

 

[Cole_Voeller]

If it’s super tiny, may be but there’s usually More and they go in and out of zoa heads but I’m leaning towards it being a sea spider called a pycnogonid

Would that be a problem?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Would that be a problem?

You dont want any of any kind- not cleaner crew not good worker

 

[Cole_Voeller]

One of my zoas was fully closed up today, and since it was only a twenty dollar one I took a razor blade and sliced it open, and there was a spider inside.
Perfect.
I went through all the frags, and any zoa that wasn’t fully open (none of the rest were closed), I sliced open to check. Not a fan of it, but they’re all replaceable. No spiders in the others.
I do have one more frag that’s not fully open, but it stopped fully opening a couple days ago right when I changed one of the lights so I’m hoping that’s why, and it’s also one of my favorites. When I get back from class, I am removing the frag rack and gravel vacuuming anything in the bottom of the tank, as well as dipping all corals in Reef Dip, as that’s all I have on hand currently. Any advice as to what all I can/should do? I also included a picture of the zoas that’s not fully open.

 

[Cole_Voeller]

I’d also like to know, could a zoa have a spider or spider eggs but still be fully open? I’d like to get some of them dipped and moved out but obviously not if there could potentially be spiders on them

 

[Second Shot]

I had zoa spiders years ago and I would go in a few hours after dark with a light and pluck them with tweezers. Didn’t take long to wipe them out but I didn’t have a ton of zoas either.

 

[Cole_Voeller]

I had zoa spiders years ago and I would go in a few hours after dark with a light and pluck them with tweezers. Didn’t take long to wipe them out but I didn’t have a ton of zoas either.

Where would you pluck them from? Like off of the zoas, or out of the insides of them? Or would they just we walking around in the tank?

 

[Second Shot]

They would be out of the polyp but still basically clenched over top of it from what I remember. I never found them away from the zoa colony.

 

[Cole_Voeller]

I had zoa spiders years ago and I would go in a few hours after dark with a light and pluck them with tweezers. Didn’t take long to wipe them out but I didn’t have a ton of zoas either.

I’ll start keeping an eye out at night for them. Thank you.