what da heck?

[roho]

A week or so ago I found fresh drilled hole in my liverock, which is about a month old. The hole is about 3/8 or 1/2 inch wide. My wife so this "thing" between some rock a couple day's ago that she described as looking like a big centipede, brown in color. She only saw the middle section of it. For a couple of day's now, when the lights come on in the morning, we see as many as 7 or 8 little creatures about 1/4 inch long on the bottom feeding. They look kinda transparent except a dark back. It may be several dark stripes on his back. The tail end of it is bent under or down and it has antenna's. I was wondering if the big and little may be related and if they could cause a problem. Thanks.

 

[Will C1]

try to sneak a pic or a look at it with the lights on, its either a mantis shrimp or a pistol shrimp. my guess is a mantis from your description. is it really fast, or does it kinda resemble a praying mantis?

 

[roho]

The wife just saw the middle section behind some rocks and it wasn't moving. I thinking the Mantis Shrimp also from what I have read tonite. I hope the other little creature are NOT babies of the Mantis, but they sure resemble shrimp to me. I tried to set a trap for the big creature, but didn't have any luck.

 

[Will C1]

its hard to catch them, and be carefull doing it they arent called thumb splitters for nothing...i wish you good luck if your tank is new i would remove the rock and try to catch them...mabe put the rock with the hole in a seperate tank or in a tub of some sort. thier probably hiding in there.

 

[Anonymous]

But I've never heard of mantis as being able to bore their own holes, they just take over the holes of others. I'm wondering if you didn't have a boring clam (you, not your wife...sorry :lol: ) and, if you do have mantids they found it and had supper.

 

[aliendomain]

The little things you see are most likley amphipods. They look like little shrimp. http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/crust/amphbiol.html

 

[Anonymous]

your 'centipede' is probably a bristleworm(or some other type of 'clean up' worm), and the small critters are most likely pods.

both are beneficial to the tank, and they're seperate animals :wink:

 

[roho]

The little fellows do look very much like the amphipods. The large thing, I don't know, but I found a fresh new hole bored between 2PM and 8pm today. Just as clean as it can be, about 1 inch deep. I have so much dust or grounds on my rock, that they look dirty. Thanks.