The best and worst of hitchhikers.

cool thanks. I guess I'll need to do a bunch of research on bad hitch hikers once I buy my rock

 

I got my rock today and not to happy about it, 40lbs and I got 5 rocks, i'll post a pick once my tank clears up. found a hitchhiker already, but it was dead, I don't feel bad cus it was ugly.

 

What was it?

 

Caribbean rock, this is suppose to be 40lbs of rock, pink coralline is OK.

 

That's very dense rock. Any time you can, try to go with more porous rock, you get more that way because it's lighter.

 

Acro crabs. The only reason to buy maricultered colonies.

 

Thing to add some Pukani rock, I like what I seen, you can do some really neat aqua-scapping ideas with this rock compared to the round shape rock like I got.

 

Pukani, Vanuatu (which is what I have), and Tukani are all very light and porous. Also, from what I've seen Marco dry rock and BRS reef saver rock are also the same way (and cheaper than live).

 

Yep,

Do not go the the boulder look. Pieces that are heavy and rounded make for scaping problems in the future.

Worst hitch-hikers have been

Pyramid snails
Flat worms
A crab or two
Red Bugs

Had a few Polyclad flat worms, but I think they are cool, but bad for snail and clams and some say corals.

Some Asterina stars are Zoanthid and corals eaters, it's a case by case bases, do not banish or kill one until you witness it eating corals or Zoanthids.

My very worst nightmare has been Majano anemones. Methods to kill aiptasia do not work, RARELY does a specific fish eat them. Do not buy a Copper Band Butterfly fish nor a File Fish to eat these, it's hit and miss for both and the demise of the fish.

Dinoflagellates (specific type), a very bad hitch-hiker and almost impossible to detect until it rears it's ugly head.

Montipora eating nudibranchs, Zoanthid eating nudibranchs, Acropora eating flat worms, Sundial snails.

 

I got 45lbs of Figi rock coming in and will be here thursday, I hope it will have nicer shapes than the Caribbean rock, my ammonia in my tank has dropped now from 2.5ppm to 0.50ppm and the I just realized my master reef test kit also does not come with nitrite, can I tell if my nitrite cycle is finished by a reading of nitrates?