Advice for a newbie with a marine tank

[Martmanicus]

Hi,

I recently decided that I wanted a reef tank in my apartment. I've never owned any aquarium but for some reason fresh water just doesn't have any interest for me... on the other hand I've always been facinated by salt water reefs.

Anyways I've purchased a Red Sea Max 250 aquarium (65 gallons), 60 pounds of cured live rock and 40 pounds of live sand. I'm in the process of cycling the tank and I'm on my second algae bloom. I've purchased half of a clean up crew and everything appeared to be going swimmingly. Well I guess it still is going swimmingly. So much so that things have started to come out of my live rock. I've seen a small sea cucumber, two crabs and now what appears to be a small mantis shrimp !?!? I'm concerned because I haven't handled these hitchhikers very well.

The sea cucumber I picked up when I saw him because I thought that surely it must be dead. Well it wasn't... it squirted and I was so surprised I dropped it. The problem is that I was in the process of putting my live sand in the tank so it was so cloudy I couldn't find him again. My concern is that he was buried and he's probably dead now. I've sifted for him but damned if I could find him. What I'm wondering is how much of a problem is it going to be with him decaying in the tank (if he's dead)? Will it be a phosphate factory for months to come or will it only be a few weeks?

The next hitchhiker problem. Crabs. How much of a problem are these guys? I heard that I was supposed to get them off the live rock and I did do a visual inspection but the rock had lots of holes to hide in. Do I need to worry about them? Is there anyway to get rid of them without tearing down the whole tank?

The last hitchhiker. A shrimp... Oh My God I was so surprised. I just saw him like 5 minutes ago sneaking out of a hole. He was pretty ****ed off at this big snail I got and he proceeded to whack a barnicle off of this snail like I've seen Mantis shrimps do on youtube. My question is whether only Mantis shrimps do that whacking thing and whether this is going to cause problems for my snails and fish down the line? The shrimp is only about an inch long right now.

Any advice you guys have is appreciated. I'll see if I can snap a picture of the shrimp.

Thanks,
Martin

[Martmanicus]

Damn. I don't know what to do about this shrimp. I could take the piece of live rock out and effectively cook it in the sunshine but that probably wouldn't kill him? Would it? I think he maybe in the process of killing one of the first things I've introduced to my tank.

Quoted from Wikipedia...
Many saltwater aquarists keep stomatopods in captivity. These aquarists may play a role in understanding the mysteries of the mantis shrimp. However, mantis shrimp are considered pests by other aquarium hobbyists because many smasher species create burrows in the exoskeletons of dead corals. These coral remains are useful in the marine aquarium trade and are often collected. It is not uncommon for a piece of coral skeleton, also known as live rock, to also ferry a live mantis shrimp into the aquarium that this live rock is placed into.Once inside the tank, they may feed on fish, corals and smaller crustaceans. They are notoriously difficult to catch when established in a well-stocked tank [19] and although there are accounts of them breaking and destroying glass tanks, such incidents are very rare[20].

[mseepman]

Usually you can take out that piece of rock and coax the shrimp out of it with a baster and some fresh water. Be cautious as it would be painful for him to smack you like he does the snails.

Simply squirt water into each hole and be prepared to catch him in some salt water so that you can decide what to do with him. They are great in a sump.

Hope that helps.

[Martmanicus]

Yeah thanks Mark. That definitely helps. I think what I'll do is take out all the live rock and do as you say. Try to get the crabs and mantis out of there and then rebuild my structure. I'm glad that this happened now I guess before I get any fish in there.

I had setup my live rock on the glass and then put the sand in afterwards. I read that was the best way to do it to avoid pockets of trapped sand under live rocks. But now when I rebuild the rocks are just going to be ontop of the live sand. Is this a problem?

[digital-audiophile]

We should ask... what kind of crabs?

[365seasons]

My husband and I are fairly new to the marine scene as well, but had the same problem with a hitchhiker crab.

We did a lot of research on if it was good or bad, and with help from a lot of people on this site (gotta love that!), we found out that our hitchhiker crab, was indeed, very bad.

This site can possibly help you ID him

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/reefs/guamimg/crustacea/xanthidae/index.html

We were told to prop a glass up against the rock, and place a shrimp (cocktail, or raw) in the bottom of it. Do this when all of the lights are out, and the crab should fall in to get the shrimp and not be able to get back out.

As well, the owner of a LFS (Ocean City) here told us to place a shrimp in the middle of the tank, turn the lights out, and when the crab comes out, to shine a flashlight on it (which supposedly immobilizes them), making it easy to fish it out.

Hopefully that will help, and then you can put them in your sump, or do with them as you wish.

[reeferious]

easiest way to coax your shrimp out would be to dunk that rock into clubsoda, i'll bet you that shrimp would fly out of his hidey hole and this way you wont have to soak your rock too long as in dunking into pure fresh water. save you all those life on liverock.

[Martmanicus]

I found a great reference site for just this thing
http://ozreef.org/library/articles/mantis_shrimp.html

Wow you know he's attacking every snail in site. I moved a bunch of snails off that piece of rock and yet I can still here him every minute or so whacking something else. Violent little buggers. Yeah I read that club soda is some kind of awful for them.

I don't want to kill him but I"m afraid I don't have much choice as I don't have a sump and I'm sure nobody wants to come pick up a homicidal mantis from downtown Vancouver :D

I don't know what type of crabs they are. It's Indonesian rock appearantly. The crabs are also hiding out in a bunch of holes. I piked several pieces of live rock that are riddled with caves thinking they looked interesting. After reading about mantis shrimp I think that all the caves have been dug out by them. Hopefully there is only one of them in my tank.

So after I'm done I'm just going to rebuild my aquascape ontop of the sand. Is this a bad idea? I don't want to disturb the sand too much as it took quite awhile for the cloudyness to go away and I can't drain my tank this time.

[landshark]

When I build my structures, I lay down small pieces of flat live rock or plastic as a makeshift footing for the bigger pieces. I try to use pieces that are same or slightly shorter than the height of your sand, (while laying directly on the glass bottom). This supports the first layer of your liverock at the height of your sand. This allows any sand sifting or burrowing fish or critters to easily tunnel under the rock and not disturb the supports that are holding up your display. I've never had any problems doing this and it is easy to do with sand allready in the tank.