What is the longest a hitch hiker has remained hidden in your tank?

[terriel]

Since I have set up my small reef tank and have spent many, many hours just sitting in front of the tank looking at the rocks (more time than I want to admit :joy: ) . My tank is a little over 4 months old and I thought I had seen every hitch hiker that came on my live rock until this evening. To my surprise as I was watching the pods and other little critters I saw for the first time a very small white brittle star slide out of one hole in one of the rocks and then disappear into another hole. I thought I had seen every critter that came on the rocks over the last couple of months.
What is the longest time a hitch hiker has remained undiscovered in your tanks before you saw it for the first time?
This is such a fun kewl hobby

 

[omgsaltwat]

I have about 20 Feather Dusters that are very small they came on a 30lbs piece of lr I didn't even know they there for about 6 months....

 

[travis89]

I had a crab in my LR for about 3 months.

 

[bocfuss]

I have had my tank running for about a month, just found 2 featherdusters. My LR was full of white brittle stars, and I mean full. Is that good or bad? Everything seems to be fine.

 

[ray28576]

I have had my rock now for over 3 years, and I still see things I've neve seen B4.

 

[fishykel]

had a nudibranch(didnt see it until 3 weeks later), and had tons of feather dusters. I was giving feather dusters to my lfs cause they kept poping up.

 

[drewsta]

I bought a piece of LR and it spawned a 500G tank and I didn't even know for 8 months................. LOL just kidding I couldn't resist

and really it was a hermit crab that I saw running around that i know i didn't buy because it was a zebra crab and it was about 9 weeks before I noticed (I thought he was a blueleg)

 

[connor]

one day i was feeding and a 4-5 inch white brittle star came walking around the tank looking for food. the tank was 9 months old and watch the tank at night with a flashlight all the time but never saw it :scared:

 

[aweo]

I turned on the lights last night and found a 2 inch jet black slug or nudi, that retreated fairly quickly for a slug.. ive used the LR its in to cure 2 tanks over the past 9 months. Never seen him once.

 

[theappe]

I got a bunch of feather dusters and a banded brittle star. I also got a few crabs including a decorator. So far thats all that ive discovered. I assume that there is more to be found.

 

[kalied20]

I found a Porclain Crab about 5 months after setup.....pretty cool little guy....doesn't come out much though

 

[anonome]

I've got you all beat.

I bought a really nice piece of live rock at LFS that I carefully hand picked because of the unusual shape---kind of oval and had a nice cave in it. Brought it home and put it in my tank, I had just set the tank up. Out popped a royal gramma!! :jumping: He has been with me since. Even survived the cycling of the tank!! I know not exactly a long time to go unnoticed, but surprising just the same.

 

[seegert]

Originally Posted by Anonome
I've got you all beat.

I bought a really nice piece of live rock at LFS that I carefully hand picked because of the unusual shape---kind of oval and had a nice cave in it. Brought it home and put it in my tank, I had just set the tank up. Out popped a royal gramma!! :jumping: He has been with me since. Even survived the cycling of the tank!! I know not exactly a long time to go unnoticed, but surprising just the same.
Cool rock shape! I can't believe you actually got a Royal Gramma With it, that's awesome! I wish I were that lucky! So far I have only found some kind of sponge and feather dusters. It's been 2 years now, so I think my discoveries are over now

Oh yeah, found the hitch hikers right away, no fun. Wish the discoveries kept coming!

 

[murph]

I have/had a group of green button polyps that I put in the tank when I started adding corals about 8 months ago. They always opened but showed no signs of growth like the other corals I bought around the same time.
This past month all but a few stopped opening all together and the colony in general began to decline. Last week the likely culprit made the mistake of showing itself. A box snail that likely came in with the coral 8 months ago as it was attached to a small piece of rock was happily doing its damage right in broad daylight.
I remove him and hopefully it has no offspring and the colony will begin to make a come back.

 

[squidd]

I just noticed a Spiney Urchin in my tank about the size of a tennis Ball..
No way he "hitchhiked" in at that size so must hvae been "hiding" for quite a while...

 

[darknes]

I turned the light on for a second at night about a month ago, and saw a bristle worm (at least I think that's what it was) about a foot long go crawling inside a rock! First time I've ever seen a bristleworm in my tank, and it's been setup for over 2 years!

 

[my way]

My rock is about 6 months old and the other night I found what looks like a Boxer Crab, Ive also recently found some Stomatella's and what I'm pretty sure is a small Abalone.

 

[pat713]

I can't wait to get my tank up and running!
Went the the LFS last week and they had a 32lb piece of LR. It was about 2 feet long, and about a foot tall. Had 1 small cave in it, about 1/2 an inch, and a larger one, about 3 inches. OOOOO I wanted it SOOOO bad, that large cave would have made a nice home for something... Too bad it wouldn't work too well in my fresh water tank...