Last hope identifying these Crawlers :(

[33AP]

Ive had no luck identifying this crawler. It was introduced to my tank via coral shipment from a well known seller in the hobby.

I always dip prior to adding any corals but these guys are resilient to ANY dip… they’ve multiplied like crazy on my sand bed & roam around on the Frags plugs irritating my Zoas.

I did an INTERCEPTOR treatment in the tank. They weren’t affected. My Copepods, Amphipods ect.. all got wiped

I believe they’re hard shelled. 4-6 legs on each side, they don’t dart around, slow/medium pace crawl. Size of a copepod.

Thank you all!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

@ISpeakForTheSeas

 

[EnterName]

Looks a bit like very small zoanthid-eating spiders. But yours look more like crabs than spiders...

 

[Sumbub]

Ive had no luck identifying this crawler. It was introduced to my tank via coral shipment from a well known seller in the hobby.

I always dip prior to adding any corals but these guys are resilient to ANY dip… they’ve multiplied like crazy on my sand bed & roam around on the Frags plugs irritating my Zoas.

I did an INTERCEPTOR treatment in the tank. They weren’t affected. My Copepods, Amphipods ect.. all got wiped

I believe they’re hard shelled. 4-6 legs on each side, they don’t dart around, slow/medium pace crawl. Size of a copepod.

Thank you all!

Do they appear on only zoas or other types of coral? Are they on the rocks? I've seen them in my friend's tank and nothing worked. The ones he had were on all types of coral. Eventually after a year or so, they just up and disappeared. We couldn't figure out what caused their demise.

 

[33AP]

Ive had no luck identifying this crawler. It was introduced to my tank via coral shipment from a well known seller in the hobby.

I always dip prior to adding any corals but these guys are resilient to ANY dip… they’ve multiplied like crazy on my sand bed & roam around on the Frags plugs irritating my Zoas.

I did an INTERCEPTOR treatment in the tank. They weren’t affected. My Copepods, Amphipods ect.. all got wiped

I believe they’re hard shelled. 4-6 legs on each side, they don’t dart around, slow/medium pace crawl. Size of a copepod.

Thank you all!

Do they appear on only zoas or other types of coral? Are they on the rocks? I've seen them in my friend's tank and nothing worked. The ones he had were on all types of coral. Eventually after a year or so, they just up and disappeared. We couldn't figure out what caused their demise.

Mainly just the sand bed, but I have seen some on the rocks. Coral wise just the Zoas, I have other corals on my sand bed like, Goni, Acan, Mushrooms, Blastos ect nothing bothers them. Up on the rocks it’s LPS & SPS nothing on those. I have a mandarin goby & possum wrasse, they don’t eat them

 

[33AP]

Looks a bit like very small zoanthid-eating spiders. But yours look more like crabs than spiders...

Zoa spider is big, kinda the size of a Zoa polyp. These are the size of a copepod, I haven’t seen any big ones. I definitely see the resemblance of a mini crab

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

@ISpeakForTheSeas

Marine mites; unfortunately, I can't offer much help beyond that at this point:

marine mites of some variety, but there are a ton of species, and I don't know enough about marine mites yet to make an ID beyond that (or to know if your species is harmful or beneficial).

For an example of a fairly similar-looking, unidentified specimen, probably of a different species:
https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/177937301

Not yet, unfortunately - marine mites haven't been very common hitchhikers for me to ID, and there are a lot of species, so I'm not very well versed in them yet. I know there are a handful of parasitic marine mite species (including some parasitic on sponges or other inverts; to my understanding, most are predatory to smaller critters, some are algae-eaters, and a small group are parasites), but I don't know of any species that parasitize corals specifically.

The idea of these being more opportunistically predatory toward dying corals is also plausible, but I can't confirm one way or another at this point.

 

[EnterName]

Marine mites; unfortunately, I can't offer much help beyond that at this point:

dang kudos, very good eye!

To me it looked a bit like a crab due to the two legs on the right pointing inward like the claws of a crab, but you appear to be right.