Animals that DESTROY equipment! What could have done THIS?!

[Silvas]

I had a star fish crawl up through the return (against the flow) and down 6ft of PVC into the return pump. The flow was way off with the sound of the pump working extra hard. I initially thought snail or possible cheato clump. Low and behold it was my Linckia Star. Luckily the outlet on my return is clear so I could see what was causing the issue. After turning everything off and removing the pump I finally pried it out, no major damage other than a few scratches.

wow. I feel like that's a pretty extreme way of saying "hey! I want more flow!"

 

[LPS Bum]

Years ago I had a 6 inch Humu Picasso Trigger that literally bit off a couple of inches of one of my Seio Prop powerheads. He also bit through every piece of airline tubing he could find. And I watched in horror as he bit a small Singapore Angel in half.

Needless to say, he was re-homed.

 

[surfNsand]

I have an 8 inch long Dragon Wrasse that can move some pretty major rocks. When he was young, I glued corals down to some larger flat rocks that easily weighed a pound. Thinking the corals and rock would be safe.. I had 3 frags probably totaling between $100 and $150 total glued to the rock. Within a week the rock was gone. I couldn't find it. Eventually I found where the Wrasse's cave is and he had placed the rock upside down over his cave. Most of the corals died.

I have found bits of egg crate getting stuck to powerheads and or in powerheads. . . I'm pretty sure he chewed chunks of egg crate out from beneath my sand bed and spit them into the water column. My entire tank used to be a sand storm when I didn't use filter socks and/or any type of mechanical filtration other than skimmer. My Skimmer pump would be jammed up within a month. My return pump would make odd grinding noises (external pump). I put in a filter sock on just one of my two overflows. I installed a 25 micron Nu-Clear cannister filter to polish the water. Not understanding what was killing my pump efficiency.

Within a day my cannister cartridge and filter sock were full of sand particles. My dragon wrasse was continuously digging in the sand each and every day and the sand had no where to go but through my pumps and return back to the aquarium. Using filter socks and the cannister filter. I've probably easily removed 20-40 lbs of sand in the last 3 years. My sand bed keeps getting smaller and smaller exposing areas of the bottom. I know it has to be the dragon wrasse....

I've seen him actually take a mouth full of sand and swim up to close to the top of the tank and release it slowly.. Crop dusting the whole tank with sand. . .

Occasionally the wet sides of my new mp40s just stop, jammed up. I pull the magnets out and discover where the magnet is is full of sand particles... It gets even into the sealed areas of the magnets... I flush them out and grease them back up and they start running at full power again. . .

Like someone else’s kid with bad manners. You can’t do anything about it but curse at it to behave. They won’t because you’ve no control over them. good luck co.

 

[admiralmcstabby]

I wouldn't necessarily say he destroyed anything but...

I had a Snowflake Eel that I raised from smaller than the palm of my hand. Got to the size of where he was eating multiple clams on the half shell a day. One day...he up and disappeared. Took out everything, checked around/behind/under the tank stand even checked the cat's breath to see if he went fishing and got a great catch....nothing.

Couple months later I go to sell the tank, broke everything down and what do I find in my plumbing....ALIVE??? Not only was he alive, somehow he continued to grow!

He stayed with the new owners of the tank but I strongly encouraged they block off the overflow lol.

 

[Treefer32]

Like someone else’s kid with bad manners. You can’t do anything about it but curse at it to behave. They won’t because you’ve no control over them. good luck co.

Agreed. I love the fish though, as much as I hate him. He's an butt. He attacks his food. He finds the largest chunk of frozen food floating in the tank and swims at it, no darts at it at full speed many times splashing water out of the tank as he flips and reverses course with the chunk of food back to his cave. There he spits it out and chews it and spits it out until it's thawed enough that he can swallow it.

 

[Goaway]

images via @WVNed

That crab... Is going to become a star!

 

[imgoingrogue1]

I wouldn't necessarily say he destroyed anything but...

I had a Snowflake Eel that I raised from smaller than the palm of my hand. Got to the size of where he was eating multiple clams on the half shell a day. One day...he up and disappeared. Took out everything, checked around/behind/under the tank stand even checked the cat's breath to see if he went fishing and got a great catch....nothing.

Couple months later I go to sell the tank, broke everything down and what do I find in my plumbing....ALIVE??? Not only was he alive, somehow he continued to grow!

He stayed with the new owners of the tank but I strongly encouraged they block off the overflow lol.

My mom had a snowflake eel do the same thing. She called me one day almost in tears saying she couldn't find him. So I come over and start looking, sure enough there he was all coiled up inside her wet dry just hanging out. He must have followed a chunk of shrimp that got sucked into the overflow.

 

[boacvh]

That crab... Is going to become a star!

Agree. There should be "Owner of a R2R legend" badge for @WVNed

 

[Goaway]

Agree. There should be "Owner of a R2R legend" badge for @WVNed

Don't tell anyone, I think ned is the pet..

 

[ReefStash]

Those crabs are nasty strong.

 

[Peter Houde]

They broke the electric wires for a heater and energized my sump too.
These animals are VERY strong, and can tip a large skimmer over.

This one is carrying baby crabs. This is the second time. The crabs have sex. The female molts and the baby crabs go from being inside the shell to outside and she carries them for quite a while.
This is like when my long spine urchins spawned. You really don't want 100 or 1000 more in your tank.

Hey they are tiny and cute when thy come on your live rock. You get invested in them.
Then they grow.

So you move them to the sump.
Then they grow some more

and you find other ones and catch them

I started armoring things in the sump with plastic pipe

Now I feed them every day. I give them the same stuff I feed my eel. They don't destroy stuff looking for food.

They also eat each other legs. They do grow back though but they are tiny at first.

So far they have destroyed two double junction ORP probes, a Jebao pump, My ATO optical sensor and a 300 watt heater.
But they are so cute, I forgive them.

Excuse me, but crabs and sex are two words that don't go together well in the same sentence.

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

Nothing significant yet. But I worry about the spirorbids that like to grow on everything. I imagine spirorbids could cause damage to pumps if they get into the wrong places so when they are having a bloom I try to check for them in bad places regularly. The other things that I watch for as far as livestock damage are molts. Particularly those lightweight transparent molts that come from things like peppermint shrimps. If I don't see them right away then inevitably get sucked into the flow pump. The number of times I've walked into the room to the sound of tick tick tick tick tick...darn things!

 

[VegasReefer]

When I was first starting out, I had a maroon clown that took a disliking to my glass thermometer. Then, pretty much everything after that

I've seen larger fish like groupers break glass heaters..... something about the way that curved glass shines in the aquarium.

 

[Auquanut]

I have a pincushion urchin that ruined 2 Jebao power heads by chewing through the power cord covering before I got smart and covered the cords. I have 2 other types of power heads that he's never bothered. Just the Jebaos.

Then there was the blood parrot cichlid I had in a FW tank that would purposely and maliciously spit sand into the intake of my canister filter while she completely redecorated the tank. I literally watched her pick up sand, carry it across the tank, and spit it into the intake. I don't know how many times I had to remove pounds of sand from the canister before she finally killed it. She now resides at my daughter's house in a tank with course gravel, and an HOB filter.

 

[The_Phoenix]

I had an angry 9 inch Oscar hit the plastic top of the tank and crack it

 

[hawk82]

Yes, but not in saltwater. Back when I used to keep African Cichlids they used to spit so much sand into the intake of one of my canister filters, that when I opened it to clean it had about 4 inches of sand in the bottom, and the impeller was ground down.

 

[McPuff]

I had an oscar that broke a glass heater. A giant snakehead broke an aquarium top and a net (or two).

 

[carbasaurus]

Mostly just benthic encrusting creatures clogging pumps over time. Nothing a soak in vinegar won’t cure

 

[WetPets]

I had a short spine urchin chew through a power cord until it zapped the tank.

 

[kcschwabe]

They broke the electric wires for a heater and energized my sump too.
These animals are VERY strong, and can tip a large skimmer over.

This one is carrying baby crabs. This is the second time. The crabs have sex. The female molts and the baby crabs go from being inside the shell to outside and she carries them for quite a while.
This is like when my long spine urchins spawned. You really don't want 100 or 1000 more in your tank.

Hey they are tiny and cute when thy come on your live rock. You get invested in them.
Then they grow.

So you move them to the sump.
Then they grow some more

and you find other ones and catch them

I started armoring things in the sump with plastic pipe

Now I feed them every day. I give them the same stuff I feed my eel. They don't destroy stuff looking for food.

They also eat each other legs. They do grow back though but they are tiny at first.

So far they have destroyed two double junction ORP probes, a Jebao pump, My ATO optical sensor and a 300 watt heater.
But they are so cute, I forgive them.

i had to get rid of all of my big stone crab because they what me and my wife refer to as "butt barnacles" not sure of the scientific term, however, they are real and they are a form of barnacle. they are a parasite that live within the crab and cause it to be a zombie i.e.. controlled by the parasite ... we started finding the little brown spongey masses hanging off of their backside. which we weren't sure would spread to our blue crabs so we got rid of our little stoners. we currently have 5 baby stone crabs in random locations throughout our tanks no bigger than a quarter we have had them for almost a year and they have barely grown .. they grow so much slower than the blues... anyways moral of the story watch out for " butt barnacles "