Saltwater spider!?!

[mountainraised]

Hey there,

I have a weird question. In my LR, there is a creature with antanae like a snail, and camoflage(sp?) skin the color of the rock. The weird part is thats all I can see. He lives in a perfectly round hole, and has a hard cap on the top of his head. Think of a trap door spider. Well, when he is out, he spins this silk roughly 6 inches long from these jaw-like mandibles, and catches hundreds of copepods floating by. I tried to catch him on the lip of his cap al pull him out with tweezers, but hes too sensitive to movement. After he catches enough pods, he reels in the silk, goes into his hole and minutes later he expells his silk into the water and makes a new one. This silk is everywhere! The hole is 1/4" round, and sinks into the LR about 1/2". I can only see about 1/8" of the body. Does anyone have ANY CLUE about this one!?!? He is making the LR a mess, and the hermits cant crawl around very well anymore because the silk tangles in their legs. Help me out on this one people... We may need to send in the Men In Black...

Ryan

[Capn]

Are you serious! Take some pictures man!

Capn
http://www.fishroom.com

[Serranus]

Wow! They are very rare in our tanks but what you have is a sea spider. They are not true spiders but are closely related. Very cool! I would love to see some pics.

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"Imagine a live coral reef in your living room! It sounds fantastic but it can actually be done; and as more people experiment with it so much more will be learned about it that someday it may be a commonplace thing." Robert P.L. Straughan, 1969

[Brien]

Before you give him the tweezer treatment, lets see if we can't find out what he is first. Sounds very cool and you may regret his demise if you find out he is not a problem.

The only organism I currently know of that spins webs is a vermitid snail, but this doesn't sound like what you have. I'm looking on reef central and maybe we can get you an answer.

Just being neighborly,

Brien

[hcp28]

that sounds so cool... post some pics definately sounds interesting. if you want you could remove the rock it's in and place it in it's own little tank, of course it would need a constant supply of coepods, so maybe connected to your tank or refugium... that would be a really cool single species tank, think you could spot feed it brine shrimp? [img]/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

Henry

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[ravenmore]

This sounds really interesting. I hate to plug another board, but Dr. Shimek has a forum on Reef Central. This sounds like something he could help with. I think I'll pop over there and post a link to this post and see if he has any ideas. I'm really curious.

-Mike

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[omegatron]

I have 3 of these creatures in my 120 reef. They are a type of worm in a calcerous tube. I do not know the name though.
next time I see one in the act I will snap a digital pic. Mostly in my tanks the webbing ends upon my sps. it never harms them.

Chuck

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[mountainraised]

Omegatron,

Do you have a problem with these guys eating your pod population? Since the beginning, this guy has wiped out more of my pods than I can count. I am worried about the population, because the pods really started to bloom after the cycle. I dont have a sump, (1. I am not mechanicaly inclined 2. I am poor)and probably wont have one because of the fear of flooding the apartment because of my handiwork. I currently have no fish that eat copepods, and wanted a stable population before fish start to prey on these guys.

Ryan

[RFK]

Sounds like a vermetid snail rather than a sea spider.

Bob

[omegatron]

Well all manuals I have do not have a pic of these guys so I cant give a name. As far as my pod population it varies.
Sometimes it is so dense that I see nothing but pods other times I really have to look.

Since VERMETIDAE do spin webs and are described as irregular worm snails I would have to guess these are them

Chuck

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[This message has been edited by omegatron (edited 02-08-2001).]

[Brien]

Mountainraised,

Is this your "spider"? See thread "want to share your macros?" See vermetid snail macro

Brien

[Baywatch Babe]

mountainraised,

According to Dr Ron, it is one of several species of vermetid snails. Harmless.


Gia