Your favorite hitchhikers (1 Viewer)

[frankc]

We often talk about the nasty hitchhikers we get, like my montipora-eating nudibranchs, but one of my favorite aspects of this hobby is the nice surprises we sometimes get. My favorite by far is this lobophyllia (at least I think that's what it is). It came as a larva or tiny polyp on a clam I bought. It also came with a feather duster worm that was too small to see at the time. The clam only lived one year, but the feather duster lived 3 years, and after almost 11 years, the lobo keeps getting better.

 

[dayton]

I found a small snowflake eel in a pile of LR I bought at a LFS. Still got him and he won't leave the sump.

 

[d2mini]

Those are cool.
I've got three of these little basket stars that came in on my gorgonians.
I've also had clams hitchhike in, porcelain crabs, baby urchins, decorator crabs... but all of this stuff came on rock from TBS.
I've never had a hitchhiker come in on anything bought locally or through other mail order vendors.

 

[frankc]

Since the upcoming issue of Coral magazine is going to be about hitchhikers, I thought this would be a good time to try to resurrect this thread.

My new tank has been running for 4 years now, and this little guy has been with me from day 1. I think it is a Brachiopod, or possibly a gooseneck barnacle. It has a head like a tiny clam, with a stalk that goes through the rock and can sometimes be seen probing the sand.



This is the end of the stalk. I don't often see it, but it was kind enough to appear today when I had the camera.



I think most established tanks have sponges, but I think this one is particularly cool.

 

[frankc]

Check out the skeleton on the Lobo. Notice the three "legs". These structures were added after the coral had grown fairly large. I think it's pretty amazing that a creature with no brain somehow "decided" it needed additional support, and then did something about it.



This picture was taken about 2 years ago when it was building one of the legs. It sent down columns of tissue, which at first made me excited thinking it was creating a new coral, but they were just there to secrete the additional structure, then they were absorbed back into the main body of the coral.