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View Full Version : Inverts that will never be put in my tank again


ElGuappo
10-26-2009, 07:25 AM
Well just thinking i would start a thread where people could post inverts they have purchased either thinking or being told that they are reef safe. only to have said invert destroy they tank in its own fashion.




1) Bumble bee snail - Will eventually eat every snail in your tank with no discrimination due to size.

2 ) Arrow crab - may be responsable for the death of many shrimp and fish. after it grew to a decent size. not once did i see it eat a bristle worm. and never lost a tank mate til after he was added. when he died it was a group effort from nearly all who survived. quite the pay per view event and i only caught the tail end.

Keri
10-26-2009, 07:38 AM
Well, it wasn't on purpose, but letting that "cute harmless looking little hitchhiker crab" that came on my rics live cost me 90% of a $140 ric rock!!

On the plus side, I think he is finally dead lol.

chris121277
10-26-2009, 02:26 PM
Camel Shrimp......were sold to me as peppermint's..........they munched holes right threw my toad stool. And my zoo's have never been the same since.

bowkry
10-26-2009, 02:46 PM
urchins, look cool but rase total terror on my tank, tipping every thing over

Borderjumper
10-26-2009, 03:06 PM
emerald crabs!

Ephraim
10-26-2009, 03:09 PM
i have found that all shrimp, crabs, stars, urchins and snails are annoying in a reef. They steal food, knock things over, steal frags and frustrate me. I will never put critters like this in my tanks again.

vaporize
10-26-2009, 03:12 PM
Anybody have any "sexy dancing shrimp" plagues? (I haven't just wondering)

bumble bee snail is a must not - eats clams and soft corals

Tiger Cowre is also a no no, it eats hair algae when it's small but will start to eat corals when it gets larger, I know it ate my GSP for sure.

Lance
10-26-2009, 03:22 PM
Emerald crab

lorenz0
10-26-2009, 03:28 PM
emerald crabs!

totally agree. I hate them now, all they do is mess everything up and pull frags off of the rockwork that you just mounted. imo the jackass's of the hobby

Marlin65
10-26-2009, 03:57 PM
Anybody have any "sexy dancing shrimp" plagues? (I haven't just wondering)

bumble bee snail is a must not - eats clams and soft corals

Tiger Cowre is also a no no, it eats hair algae when it's small but will start to eat corals when it gets larger, I know it ate my GSP for sure.

I had a Cowrie eat my GSP as well.
Did not know about the bumble bee I better take out the one I got.:surprise:
Anyone want it?:twised:

Marlin65
10-26-2009, 03:58 PM
urchins, look cool but rase total terror on my tank, tipping every thing over

I have three of these and don't mind them just make sure everything is glued down. They are great algae eaters.

Coincidentally
10-26-2009, 04:23 PM
My urchin eats soft corals: toadstools, Xenia, anthelia and his favorite is zoas. Must feed him nori every couple days or he will eat everything...

christyf5
10-26-2009, 05:45 PM
any hermit crab. they have a preference for snails and when they run out of snails they just kill each other and have no interest in eating any algae whatsoever.

Lance
10-26-2009, 06:54 PM
any hermit crab. they have a preference for snails and when they run out of snails they just kill each other and have no interest in eating any algae whatsoever.




+1 Hate the little buggers!

marie
10-26-2009, 06:58 PM
any hermit crab. they have a preference for snails and when they run out of snails they just kill each other and have no interest in eating any algae whatsoever.


I have no idea what the hermits eat in my tanks but they don't eat enough snails in my opinion :lol:

whatcaneyedo
10-26-2009, 07:13 PM
The only good crab is a porcelain crab in my opinion and even they can cause problems so no more crabs period.

Green death brittle star, it never had a chance to eat any fish but it was a bad impulse purchase that now lives in my sump.

Any kind of anemone (including tube anemones). I've only had a couple problems but they arent a good long term member of a mixed reef.

Turbo snails because they become too large and clumsy.

Rock boring urchin because mine kept eating the silicone holding the tank together. It too now lives in my Rubbermaid sump.

kien
10-26-2009, 07:36 PM
So what I've read out of this thread is that these critters seem to all behave differently in everyone's tanks (no surprise I guess) :-) Just like that "hit-and-miss" fish (aka, flame angel, etc..). You can never know for sure how they will behave in your tank. Save for a mantis shrimp incident a long time ago, I haven't had any problems with any inverts that I have purposefully put in my tank. In fact, I love inverts and how they interact with one another. My list includes starfish (red reef, lenckia), an urchin, an army of hermits, 4 skunk cleaners, 2 fire shrimp, 2 peppermint shrimp, 3 sexy shrimp, acro crabs, a Porcelain crab, snails of various sorts. Heck, I even enjoy just sitting there watching abalone craw across rock work. I know I'm weird like that. Those little buggers are amazingly fast though... sometimes I think they race.

dsaundry
10-26-2009, 07:45 PM
My anenome crab seems harmless enough, just stays in the anemone all the time.:biggrin:

plutoniumJoe
10-26-2009, 07:49 PM
I had two halloween hermits that got very big and aggressive. They both killed my counches and stole their shells. One went back to the LFS the other met his match with a blue legged hermit with a killer right hook.

bulletsworld
10-26-2009, 07:54 PM
any hermit crab. they have a preference for snails and when they run out of snails they just kill each other and have no interest in eating any algae whatsoever.

+1 :biggrin:

I got a cool orange/red legged, large (fist sized) hermit crab that ate my all my lil crabs and then catch him eating my starfish live! Bastard! :sad:

Zoaelite
10-26-2009, 08:11 PM
totally agree. I hate them now, all they do is mess everything up and pull frags off of the rockwork that you just mounted. imo the jackass's of the hobby

Love my emerald, hes about 2 inches across and perhaps the biggest reason there's no pest algae on any of my zoa colonies. Also love my urchin, don't even have to frag my zoas any more I just take them off the little pin cushion. If we expanded this to any animal you shouldn't put in a reef then I would have to say a red corris wrasse, the one I had was satan spawn.

StirCrazy
10-26-2009, 11:30 PM
emerald crabs!


Ok, you need to have an explanation, as I will never have a tank with out a couple emeralds :mrgreen:

Steve

lorenz0
10-27-2009, 12:09 AM
Love my emerald, hes about 2 inches across and perhaps the biggest reason there's no pest algae on any of my zoa colonies. Also love my urchin, don't even have to frag my zoas any more I just take them off the little pin cushion. If we expanded this to any animal you shouldn't put in a reef then I would have to say a red corris wrasse, the one I had was satan spawn.

can our emerald crabs meet so that yours can tell mine the how to actually take car of a tank

Ellie_A
10-27-2009, 03:44 AM
We have 3 bumble bees in our 75 with 2 clams and many corals. No issue at all

Anybody have any "sexy dancing shrimp" plagues? (I haven't just wondering)

bumble bee snail is a must not - eats clams and soft corals

Tiger Cowre is also a no no, it eats hair algae when it's small but will start to eat corals when it gets larger, I know it ate my GSP for sure.

fiorano
10-27-2009, 03:44 AM
i have an emerald that is 2 inches across as well and he has never caused me any problems what so ever. but im with ll the people who are against hermits i hated mine cause they just kept eating all my snails. so now they're slowly disappearing as they become mantis food haha. i would also never buy an urchin again as i am against gluing all my corals and rocks together and they seem to never like my style of aquascaping and think it should all be bulldozed to the ground

Ellie_A
10-27-2009, 03:49 AM
I agree that it seems as though inverts are hit and miss. I have had a halloween hermit for over a year and I love him. He never bothers anything and is always eating algae, the other hermits occasionally eat snails, but he's an angel!

I had two halloween hermits that got very big and aggressive. They both killed my counches and stole their shells. One went back to the LFS the other met his match with a blue legged hermit with a killer right hook.

fishytime
10-27-2009, 01:25 PM
So what I've read out of this thread is that these critters seem to all behave differently in everyone's tanks (no surprise I guess) :-) Just like that "hit-and-miss" fish (aka, flame angel, etc..). You can never know for sure how they will behave in your tank. Save for a mantis shrimp incident a long time ago, I haven't had any problems with any inverts that I have purposefully put in my tank. In fact, I love inverts and how they interact with one another. My list includes starfish (red reef, lenckia), an urchin, an army of hermits, 4 skunk cleaners, 2 fire shrimp, 2 peppermint shrimp, 3 sexy shrimp, acro crabs, a Porcelain crab, snails of various sorts. Heck, I even enjoy just sitting there watching abalone craw across rock work. I know I'm weird like that. Those little buggers are amazingly fast though... sometimes I think they race.

Im like you Kien.....I have a plethora of inverts in the tank....no shrimp anymore as my mystery wrasse finds them tasty....two tuxedo urchins, two fromia stars(Kien if your star is red, it is actually a fromia star, not a linkia....commonly mislabeled) pom pom crab(seen it once in a year), a bunch of different hermies,and an assortment of snails.....I just think crabs are to cool not to have in my reef, so I accept them for what they are.

kien
10-27-2009, 01:51 PM
Im like you Kien.....I have a plethora of inverts in the tank....no shrimp anymore as my mystery wrasse finds them tasty....two tuxedo urchins, two fromia stars(Kien if your star is red, it is actually a fromia star, not a linkia....commonly mislabeled) pom pom crab(seen it once in a year), a bunch of different hermies,and an assortment of snails.....I just think crabs are to cool not to have in my reef, so I accept them for what they are.

Ya, the red starfish is a Fromia, but I do have a blue and an orange linckia as well. Oh, and also a sand sifting starfish. I will admit that I do hunt down and banish gorilla (those fuzzy ones) crabs. I used to let them be but did eventually notice them having a midnight snack on my SPS. Now those are bad inverts in my book :twised: So far have only had to pull out 3 though.

StirCrazy
10-27-2009, 03:07 PM
you know.. I have been reading how many people are against hermits, but I have made a few observations over the last 8 years about them and snails. now this is just what I have seen or concluded and not nessasarly fact, but ....

what I have decided is they don't kill snails but rather take out the ones that are dieing anyways. I have come to this conclusion as I used to have a ton of hermits of a few different types, I like watching them and the little blue legged ones do an amazing job of eating algae off the rocks if you have enough, but I noticed snaills were dieing off. thinking it was the hermits eating them I went on a campaine to remove the hermits. I went from about 50 or 60 to about 3 and added a bunch more snaills. the snaills then dies off at the same rate even though the hermit numbers were only a fraction of the previous numbers. so after removing the last of the hermits I added a bunch more snails.. same result.

for the next 5 years I looked at the life span of different types od snails and decided the only ones I will now buy are asteria, and mexican red turbos (if I need them) I found regular turbos are buldozers, margerita snaills just die for no reason and quickly. frome reading I have found they are actualy a colder water snail and this may be why. but I have found all snails seam to have a higher death rate than other things we put in our tank, but because they are cheep we just buy more.

so over the years I have decided that the hermits arn't killing the snails only culling out the already dieing ones, which is a bonus as the dying snail is eaten quickly and can't polute the tank.

so in my opinion hermit crabs are ok.

Steve

fishytime
10-27-2009, 05:37 PM
Ok, you need to have an explanation, as I will never have a tank with out a couple emeralds :mrgreen:

Steve

Explain what? Emerald crabs are in the mithrax family.....the vast majority of the hairy legged hitchhiker crabs we find and try to remove are also from the mithrax family.....a crab is a crab is a crab....they are opportunistic and will kill, given the opportunity.

fishytime
10-27-2009, 05:39 PM
"Ya, the red starfish is a Fromia, but I do have a blue and an orange linckia as well. Oh, and also a sand sifting starfish. I will admit that I do hunt down and banish gorilla (those fuzzy ones) crabs. I used to let them be but did eventually notice them having a midnight snack on my SPS. Now those are bad inverts in my book So far have only had to pull out 3 though."

Orange one is a fromia too:mrgreen:

StirCrazy
10-27-2009, 05:59 PM
Explain what? Emerald crabs are in the mithrax family.....the vast majority of the hairy legged hitchhiker crabs we find and try to remove are also from the mithrax family.....a crab is a crab is a crab....they are opportunistic and will kill, given the opportunity.

except for the fact that the claws on the emerald crab are specilized for removing algae not for catching prey, they are flat ended to give them grip so they can pull chunks of algae off rocks, and they are not hairy.

Steve

fishytime
10-27-2009, 06:30 PM
except for the fact that the claws on the emerald crab are specilized for removing algae not for catching prey, they are flat ended to give them grip so they can pull chunks of algae off rocks, and they are not hairy.

Steve

http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.saltwaterfish.com/site_11_03/images/176_emeraldcrabzexx.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.saltwaterfish.com/site_11_03/product_info.php%3Fproducts_id%3D176%26parent_cate gory%3D4%26category_search%3D63%26root_parent_id%3 D4&usg=__uGu70chh1sVKrcOv-tOYY1tDz_U=&h=336&w=370&sz=56&hl=en&start=13&um=1&tbnid=dPMn_Ai8gHbaxM:&tbnh=111&tbnw=122&prev=/images%3Fq%3DEmerald%2Bcrabs%26hl%3Den%26client%3D firefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1

Looks pretty dang hairy to me.....perhaps yours has a "Mach 5" or something.....those claws are indeed designed for algae....but that doesnt mean they dont also work for pulling out sps polyps or pulling off zoanthids.....most small emeralds will concentrate on algae, but as they get bigger they start to change their diet to scavenging for whatever they can find.

kien
10-27-2009, 07:05 PM
Orange one is a fromia too:mrgreen:

Really?? It looks exactly like my blue Linckia except for being orange. Looks nothing like my red Fromia.. weird.. and confused now
!

fishytime
10-27-2009, 07:18 PM
Really?? It looks exactly like my blue Linckia except for being orange. Looks nothing like my red Fromia.. weird.. and confused now
!

The red(with tiny black pores?) one is likely milliporella and the name of the other one escapes me now....It is in the invert edition of the Baensch(sp?) atlas at the shop.....No such thing as an orange linckia....as far as my research has shown.:wink:....no need to be confused......they are commonly mislabeled.

StirCrazy
10-27-2009, 07:57 PM
Looks pretty dang hairy to me.....perhaps yours has a "Mach 5" or something.....those claws are indeed designed for algae....but that doesnt mean they dont also work for pulling out sps polyps or pulling off zoanthids.....most small emeralds will concentrate on algae, but as they get bigger they start to change their diet to scavenging for whatever they can find.

I thought you were talking about the same hairyness as the ugly guys that have a harry shell also, ya they have hair ont he legs. I had 3 in my tank for about 5 years, never seen them attack coral at all, so I don't know, hit and miss maybe? like anything else.

Steve

kien
10-27-2009, 08:09 PM
The red(with tiny black pores?) one is likely milliporella and the name of the other one escapes me now....It is in the invert edition of the Baensch(sp?) atlas at the shop.....No such thing as an orange linckia....as far as my research has shown.:wink:....no need to be confused......they are commonly mislabeled.

Cool, thanks! Learn something new every day. I've always assumed he was an orange linckia. He still looks and behaves exactly like the blue one though :lol:

I do remember now that I once had a cowrie snail because I thought they were cool. He ended up eating things that I did not want him to eat :( I still think they look cool every time I see them at the LFS but don't want to risk a repeat of that incident.

TheMikey
10-27-2009, 10:24 PM
When I finished cycling my tank I added a cleanup crew with a bunch of snails and three hermits. A green reef and two red hermits. The green one got much larger than the red and quickly made meals of two hermits and most of the snails in the tank. Despite the fact it was the biggest one in the tank and I had a bevy of shells available for him to move into when he grew out of his current shell.

As much as I like hermits, I'll be hard pressed to add them to any other tank that I do.

ElGuappo
09-16-2010, 07:29 AM
well i have been sampling a variety of hermits lately and now know of about 3 types i wont reuse due to size or aggression. the green ones for algae they get huge and in my bowfront i have a few wierd ones that are starting to get huge..

lastlight
09-16-2010, 07:41 AM
My emerald started yanking sps polyps so I got rid of him. My hermits (5) have not killed my 2 snails. My powerhead got one snail awhile back and the other snail has been fine.

They are clumsy but seem harmless. I like watching inverts a lot and while the hermits sorta plow over things sometimes If I *do* want to remove them it's so easy as they're slow!

Flash
09-16-2010, 03:45 PM
every once and a while one of my bigger hermits will take out a smaller one... my snails are all fine, i have 5 mexican turbos, they do a great job...I had an emerald, every time a smaller crab, snail or fish swam by he got all ****y and tried to grab at them... well one day I watched my female Perc take him out! and that was the last emerald that i will put in my tank!

DiverDude
09-16-2010, 07:48 PM
I have 4 or 5 hermits and 2 or 3 bumblebee snails and I've never had an issue with any of them in my 30 gal....

AquaticFinatic
03-09-2011, 01:17 AM
I never new about bumbles I have around 10 in mine but don't think I have any issues. :question:

daniella3d
03-09-2011, 02:26 AM
I recently found a little hichicker crab on a frag and decided to keep it. Glad I did because he does not toutch anything in my tank and he's so cute. come to take the food from my hand.

Hope I will not regret that eventualy! I just could not kill it. :redface:

Madreefer
03-09-2011, 02:41 AM
My biggest regret was a red reef lobster. He would attack any fish that swam by the cave he lived in. Gave it to a freind and it started eating his fish. He disposed of it and I never asked how.

Samw
03-09-2011, 02:50 AM
Love my emerald, hes about 2 inches across and perhaps the biggest reason there's no pest algae on any of my zoa colonies.

+1

I have tons of videos and photos of my Emerald crabs eating bubble algae, hair algae, and turf algae. They are my number 1 favorite clean up crew. I have 4 at the moment and would welcome more. I've never seen them touch anything that they shouldn't. All of my trimma gobies are accounted for.

If there's a hermit crab that will kill snails, it is the zebra left handed hermit. Usually when a snail falls off the glass, i don't worry about it as the snail always somehow gets back on the glass. However i noticed during one period of time that more and more healthy snails ended up being empty shells. Then, on one or two occasions after I knocked a snail off (while cleaning the glass with a magnet for example) I decided to wait and see if it would climb back on the glass, only to see the zebra hermit make a straight line to the snail and kill it.

No more zebra hermits in my tank. After getting rid of my zebra hermits, I stopped losing snails regularly. Scarletts and blue legged hermits are perfectly fine in my tank though and I have dozens of those.

reeferious
03-09-2011, 03:39 AM
my fascination with fire leads me to the logical step of keeping creatures with fiery disposition. for a few months a blue ring octopus shared tank space with red fire urchins, red fire anemonies and fire corals. occasional hand brushes reminds me just how potent these stinging creatures are. the blue ring though deadly is just the shyest creature there is and it's a rare treat for me to even get a glimpse; but just the same i will not be tempted into keeping a second one again. no second chance once it sinks its beak into you.

pyke
03-09-2011, 03:42 AM
First off I find it amazing to hear people say the only have 2 snails in a 180G aquarium. I must have 25-30. I do find the odd empty shell but have also seen a few hermits with an upgraded home due to those shells. As for the hermits I have found them to be killing off each other but not not in massive numbers.

I have 3 common and 2 tuxedo Urchins and have found them to knock over the occational coral that is not secured very well but usually just. We have three bumble bee snail and have neve seen them on a coral but I have had a few bad spots on a some toadstool as of late (could they be to blame?) I also have 2 fire shrimp (they are always cleaning the fish) and 2 peppermint shrimp(not an once of aptasia in the tank). I also have a blue star (only see him once a month) and an emerald crab (only see him once every 2-3 months) and the cow of my tank a sea hare. He is by far the the bull of the tank, he knocks over any and everything, I swear he rearranges my rock for me. We give him a small sheet of nori everyonce in a while to supplement his diet every once in a while but he has been in the tank for about 6 months without any hair algae.

I dont know if I would put in the bumble bee snails again but the rest of my clean up crew we love. I never (I mean NEVER) have to clean the back wall of the tank or the overflows, (if they look a little dirty I just drop a few snail in the over flow, and its clean in two days)

toytech
03-09-2011, 05:01 AM
I regret a realy big hermit i bought " oh ya hes totaly reef safe " then he ate most of my new duncan , and then there was the pencil urchin of death . Ate 4 corals and would chase down my starfish and eat his legs , figured that one out too late.Traded the pencil for a long spine man what a difference , now i have a tuxedo and hes great too.

silentcivilian
03-09-2011, 06:12 AM
Sooo... my invert population is very very diverse.. I have snails of all kinds shapes and sizes.. from bumbles to mexicans to troch and the spiney astrias (excuse the spelling, you get the idea) I have shimp, I have crabs, blue legged, halloween, scarlets, little tiny algae crabs, emerals somewhere.. my pom pom MIA for almost 9 months... could actually be gone now.. not sure.. sand shifting starfish... they all reign terror on each other but still co-exsist.. the only snails I have that set me off are the ones I didnt buy that grow in tubes and spin webs.. I HATE THEM! they can bugger off so many corals sooo fast..

cathyg_99
03-09-2011, 10:03 PM
emerald crabs!

why? I have one in my tank and hes just fine

Wayne
03-09-2011, 10:06 PM
I have also seen my emerald crab picking at SPS polyps... I gave him "the look" and he cut it out :lol:

CandyCane
03-12-2011, 04:06 AM
I have 3 very small blue leg hermits living in my 2gallon frag tank. They have never once touched a coral besides by accedent tipping one over. One of them LOVES riding around on my banded trochus snail because that way he can clean the algae off the snails shell and get to the top of the tank. I also have many very small snails in the tank that the hermits just ignore since I have many already empty shells for them to move into.

Hermits are great for cleaning the sand in new tanks

ElGuappo
03-12-2011, 07:05 AM
interesting to see this thread getting more play again, so i will add another never again to the list..

bumblebee shrimp.... yes very small and cute but they eat the tubular feet of any and all starfish urchins etc...