Need help with ID

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shannpeach

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Need help with ID Thursday, August 16, 2012 8:42 AM (permalink)

This morning I woke up to find hundreds(ish) of these little guys floating around near the surface of my 50 gallon. At first I thought they were fish eggs (I have a trio of A. occellaris, pair of Synchiropus stellatus, and a couple other single fish) but after throwing them under the microscope, they definitely are not. Was it some sort of amphipod bloom? They really don't look like amphipods to the naked eye, and I have never seen them in these numbers and they are all about the same size.

I don't have any shrimp (that I know of), I have various sorts of hermit crabs and snails, one red emerald crab.

Any ideas?

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Arc Katana Total Posts : 929 Scores: 19 Reward points : 1293 Joined: 10/20/2009 Status: offline MBI Site: Marine Breeding Initiative (MBI)	Re:Need help with ID Thursday, August 16, 2012 9:46 AM (permalink) 0 Hermit crab zoae is my guess Good food for everything in your tank.
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luis a m Total Posts : 451 Scores: 2 Reward points : 1249 Joined: 3/15/2011 Location: Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, AR Status: offline MBI: 0 Pnts MBI Site: Marine Breeding Initiative (MBI)	Re:Need help with ID Thursday, August 16, 2012 11:03 AM (permalink) 0 Hermit crab zoea 1.Nice pictures!.Could you shoot a profile view?. You could try siphoning some out and feeding bbs.
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shannpeach

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Re:Need help with ID Thursday, August 16, 2012 11:18 AM (permalink)

Now that you say it, they definitely do look like hermit crab zoea. Most of the pictures I googled show a pointy thing coming off the head that I didn't see in my pics, but that is probably just because of the top-down view I would guess.

I did siphon them out so I could use as many as needed to get a good scope view. I will see if I can get more pictures; I used a microscope at work that is much much nicer than the one I have at home. I will throw some rotifers and tisbe in with them (they are coculturing as much as I wish they weren't!) today since I have some available, and start hatching bbs asap. Now if I only knew which of the hermit crabs these came from

Thanks!

shannpeach Total Posts : 955 Scores: 2 Reward points : 676 Joined: 5/30/2012 Location: Milwaukee, WI, US Status: offline MBI: 2655 Pnts MBI Site: Marine Breeding Initiative (MBI)	Re:Need help with ID Thursday, August 16, 2012 11:51 AM (permalink) 0 Luis- I got some side view pics for you, although the focus isn't as great (they were still wiggling a tiny bit). I will try tomorrow to get more pictures if they are still alive. Attached Image(s)
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luis a m

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Re:Need help with ID Thursday, August 16, 2012 11:57 AM (permalink)

Originally Posted by shannpeach

Now if I only knew which of the hermit crabs these came from

That is too much to ask!

Yes,typically they have a long pointed rostrum pointing downwards which doesn´t show well in your dorsal view.
They have few zoeal stages and are not particularly hard to raise.The real challenge is to provide super tiny shells when they reach the megalopa stage.
PS.I just saw the lateral pics.Yes,the rostrum is still rather shortish.Perhaps it will develop later.

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