Something is eating my nassarius vibex snails, and a hermit.

[borillion_star]

I'm having some issues with something eating my nassarius snails, it seems to have moved onto eating a hermit crab too, I found his legs and head near the live rock.:furious: Will it go after my clown fish also?

I'm not sure what it is, I hear some popping noises occasionally, but it could be my Koralia, should I leave the rock out for a while and see it it leaves? Im worried about killing the sponges and other life thats coating this piece. I have never actually seen it.:thumbdown

[jb61264]

the popping noise you here is a good indicator of a pistol shrimp or a mantis shrimp. I personally have never had problems with my pistol shrimp (paired with an orangespot watchman goby) but have had mantis that did numbers on snails and hermits...my guess is that its a mantis if you have hermits being destroyed

[Frick-n-Frags]

1) verify it isnt a molt on the hermit then move on to #2 :)

2) i had a mantis hitcher on my very first LR. the fla dudes told me it was a slipper lobster, heh. reefkeeping 101 was now in session. (yes florida. 1988 was still legit to get LR from there)

i watched my slipper lobster. it was cool how he could smash at a piece of LR to get at a worm or something. he danced for food at feeding time. he turned my hermit into a pile of claws n shells. i did some research :D learned about mantis shrimp.


so, from your description, i can only think mantis shrimp, based upon what i went through

but..it could be a pistol + nasty hitcher crab or...who knows

[BongoSolo3]

I am having this same problem, but i know that it's a pistol in there. Hitchhiked in on some LR. I have tried removing all the rock 3 different times to get him out - it is impossible. There are too many crevasses that he slides into without me seeing it.

Every other day I see new remains of my hermits floating around, and empty nassarius snails. Any ideas how to get rid of this thing? At this point, I'm open to ideas that would result in its death - it has decimated my CUC.

[Equipment Junky]

Maybe it's your Ricordia;)

Check this out: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1807272

[borillion_star]

I think I found what it maybe, it looks like there is a 1cm crab with red claws that are white tipped. I haven't seen it come out but I can see the claws or sometimes just one or the other. :hmm4:

I tried to squish him with a rod down his hole several times, but it doesn't seem to have worked.:furious:

[borillion_star]

BongoSolo3, Im going to try and make a small trap with a piece of shrimp in it. Try and see what happens with yours too.