I think I have spiders

rackyrane

rackyrane

Member
Well, it's finally happened. I think I have something nasty in my tank.
Tonight I was rearranging my LR to put some new in and took one of my zoos out. I saw this funky looking critter and of course ran to look it up. It was a zoanthid spider, I'm pretty sure. I FW dipped the zoo immediately and in total got 4 of them off of there.
What should I do now? Should I take out all of my zoos and FW dip them? FW dip and QT?
Help please. I love my zoos and so far no losses, but don't want to wait until it happens. Don't know where these little suckers came from!
 
beth

beth

Administrator
Staff member
Fresh water dip with Kent's Lugol's Solution
on all effected zoos. Be sure that temperature and pH are the same as the display. All zoos effected should also go into a quarantine tank. You'll need to do nightly search and hand tweezer extract the spiders after lights are out.

Now, this is a rather drastic thing, so I would want to be very sure that the spiders are your problem. One symptom of this problem is failing zoo colonys where spiders are located. Are your zoos failing?
I'm going to move your topic to the Reef Forum, for further input. If you can actually post a picture of this, that would be very helpful.
 
reefkprz

reefkprz

Active Member
those frikken things are nearly impossible to eradicate, once in your display, I hope for your sake that its not them. I would also reccomend not trading any corals to any one for at least 3 months after you have them gotten rid of to be sure you dont sill have them. I dont know a sigle way to effectively kill them, that wont also kill the coral they are infecting. I'm sorry I cant be more help at this time.
 
cam78

cam78

Active Member
Ot, oh, I just bought a zoo and it fell twice from the plae I put it. I thought it was my crabs.
 
rackyrane

rackyrane

Member
Thanks for the replies.
Beth,
My zoos aren't failing at all, in fact they are doing well. I just bought some zoos a couple weeks ago and maybe they came in on there.
Reef,
I definitely won't be trading anything to anyone because if I have these things, I don't want to pass them on.
The things I found didn't really look exactly like either picture. They resembled the second one more than the first.
I will see if I find more of them in the tank and post a picture. Hopefully, no more are in there. I would hate to get rid of all my zoos. I just obtained some sweet Blues.
Any thoughts on FW dipping? I did this last night when I saw the little rats and they died very quickly. I will also pick up the Lugols today.
 
beth

beth

Administrator
Staff member
Brittlestars commonly inhabit reef tanks, and will show up on corals when the lights go out as they search for food. Hopefully what you are seeing, is brittles or something else equally benign.
 
reefkprz

reefkprz

Active Member
you get spiders from infested corals when you buy them. thats why I QT corals that come from sources I am not 100% sure of the quality of the tanks. they prefer zoas but will dine on other corals as well.
 
rackyrane

rackyrane

Member
Ok, so I dipped all of my zoanthids tonight and found 4 more of these things. I am going to try and post a picture, but they sure look like the second picture that you posted Beth. Now I am freaked out. Should I get rid of my zoos?
Reef, these things will eat other corals too? Am I going to have a FOWLR soon instead of a reef tank?
Man, I have only had this tank since November. This really sucks. I can see why people give up SW tanks.
 
reefkprz

reefkprz

Active Member
they can eat other corals I've heard. but if you have lots of zoas chnces are thats where they will all be. treat you zoas as beth reccomended and take it from there. a picture would be nice cause it would be a real bummer if you were exterminating mini brittles.
 
catawaba

catawaba

Active Member
I've seen Rackyrane's specimens. They are most definitely not brittlestars. They are spiders....look like overgrown wood ticks in a way.
Dip Dip Dippity Do
 
rackyrane

rackyrane

Member
Can't get camera to get a close enough picture. Will keep trying. They sure look like the second picture Beth posted. Does anything eat these guys? An arrowcrab maybe?
 
reefkprz

reefkprz

Active Member
Originally Posted by Catawaba
Bump.
Anyone have ideas on predators for the spiders?
six line wrasse, maybe. I know they eat a lot of nasty buggers that are dangerouse to corals.
 
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