The best and worst of hitchhikers.

Coral survivor? I had this piece of Coral head on the botton of my box that obviously broke off the live caribbean rock I got recently, I was going to toss it, but I am glad I didn't, I placed it in the tank and today I noticed I have some survivors, sorry for the poor pic, my camera takes the worst close-ups I ever seen.

 

The best hitch hikers I've had were yellow zoas and some flourescent orange coraline algae. The worst hitch hiker was Aiptasia.

 

Some nice hitchhikers. a dendro I think and my plate coral.

 

Odd Hitchiker

My LFS has a beautiful solid yellow Mantis Shrimp for sale, unfortunately I have a glass tank.

I am quite curious as to the identity of a Hitchhiker I ended up with after adding the first coral culture to my aquarium. I am relatively new to Marine Aquariums, so even A hint in the right direction as to finding out if this is harmless would be appreciated. I cannot provide a photo at the moment, but here is my best attempt at a description:

Small pear shaped white balls, slightly larger then a pea each, with what appears to be spikes similar in density to that which is seen on a Pincushion Urchin. They seem to have a line of black dots that are very small (Smaller then the eye of a needle) , usually around three, going vertically from what would be the top of the "pear" to the bottom. I originally found them numbering in the hundreds all over the glass of my tank, but one good scrub with an algae scrubber later and all that were left were on my live-rock. They do not seem to get bigger than twice the size of a pea.

Any idea on what these could be?
Thanks!

 

google pineapple sponge

 

Just FYI, glass tanks don't matter with smaller mantis. The only mantis shrimp large enough to actually damage glass is Peacock mantis or larger, and those get to be about 8". Even then, many people believe that aquarium glass broke because of a pre-existing defects (cracks, chips) rather than the brute strength of the mantis. If I were to keep a Peacock Mantis, I would put some acrylic down on the bottom of the tank to protect it, but the rest would be glass and I wouldn't have a concern with it. They don't just hit things willy-nilly.

I've kept 3 mantis so far in a 14 Biocube, ranging from 1.5" long to 5" long, and never had a problem. They couldn't even hurt the black plastic on the back of the biocube. I fully plan on having a mantis in our fuge under the new 90, as it would be weird for me not to have one

As far as hitchhikers go, we've had the typical bristle worms, flat worms, etc. We fully plan on dipping corals from now on, because our tank is pest free (finally). If you have invert hitchhikers that are a nuisance, I recommend getting a six line wrasse. We've had 2 now, and they have cleared the whole tank of any bristle worms and flat worms. When we first started our tank 5 years ago, we saw several bristle worms a night, but now I can't even remember the last time I saw one.

 

like these? my pineapple sponges

 

Ah, the nostalgia of pineapple sponges. We used to have them all over creation. As our tank aged and became more established, they went away. They typically come and go with young tanks.