Reef Spiders - Hooray!

[Privateye]

I'm one of those annoying marine biologists that finds this cool. I got a tiny Yuma mushroom from a prominent store in Orlando. When I was acclimating them I was like "could that be a...?" and then after the dip it was confirmed. After hearing about these 9 years ago in the LFS I was working at, I finally saw some in person. I'm actually pretty happy about it. 3 are in the photo, but only one is clearly visible. Where's Waldo? The container is about 2" wide.

 

[TriggerFinger]

Did they survive the dip?

 

[Privateye]

Did they survive the dip?

Those ones are toast lol. As to whether some survived and went undetected, who knows? Hopefully that was all of them. I have anemones and a mixed reef with about 100 varieties of coral (1/3 each soft, LPS, SPS). I was really grateful just to see some. They almost looked like the fronds of a tiny feather duster when they were alive and on the frag. If I found some larger specimens I'd probably try to keep them in another tank though.

 

[king aiptasia]

nice spiders

 

[TheDragonsReef]

That's pretty cool

 

[Trey]

Yikes

 

[CMMorgan]

Spiders.... Hooray .... said no

one... ever.

 

[Privateye]

I called the store to let them know. I was very clear that I'm not upset - I'm actually grateful for the experience. They said they would put credit on my account anyway, even when I told them it wasn't necessary. Great customer service.

Really helps to promote informing stores about their hitchhikers for the good of the community! They will inform the quarantine team.

Thanks for the interest guys!

 

[Righteous]

I totally would have nerded out and been excited as well..

then killed them with fire.

What’s cool about sea spiders is it’s not really known how closely they are related to your standard Arachnid spiders. They may be in the same group called Chelicerata, which include arachnid land spiders, scorpions etc.... but it’s also possible they are instead the last surviving members of an ancient group sister to all Arthropods (ie all the animals with exoskeletons).

 

[jeff williams]

I hope the frag went into a qt and not your dt or you my not be to thrilled about them when eggs start hatching

 

[namfuak]

Do you have any images from under a microscope?

 

[Privateye]

Do you have any images from under a microscope?

No unfortunately. I should have taken some. Maybe we could have tried to ID! It sound some sea spiders have different larval cycles so it could have been helpful to determine how these reproduce. Most sound like the larvae wouldn't transmit to the aquarium, but the ones with larvae that encyst in corals....bad news.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Zoa spiders are marine arthropods known as pycnogonids. ea spiders are common predators on zoanthid corals. They may be hard to spot, some being as small as 0.04 inches in diameter. They will even crawl inside a closed polyp, making it very difficult to spot. The good news is that they reproduce sexually, not asexually.
The bad news is that they tend to stay beneath the mucus layer of the zoas, and remain unaffected by treatments. The best method discovered so far is to physically remove the adults with some tweezers. Keep checking the coral for months afterwards to catch any that hatched over time.

 

[danieyella]

I found one once on a frag I was moving from one tank to another, I dipped everything I could access but never saw another or signs of any of them again. I assume my canary wrasse takes care of the population and this one just slipped through. It was super tiny.

 

[Privateye]

These were on a mushroom and at least one was visible on the rock next to the coral itself when i was acclimating (in retrospect). I hope they aren't the zoanthid ones, but fortunately they seemed to present differently.

I wonder if it's something my hawkfish or clown goby would hunt down. The clown goby does seem like a benefit to the corals he hosted over the years!