More tales from my saltwater tank... Something very rare and cool has happened!

[Kristina]

So this is extremely, extremely rare. Hermit crabs, both water and land dwelling, are almost impossible to breed in captivity. They hatch into a planktonic state, and are extremely tiny, very hard to feed, and are almost always completely killed by any sort of mechanical filtration.

Guessed yet what happened in my tank?

Yup, I have baby hermits! This is extremely rare, as I said before. I know these are not simply "hitchhikers," because I have not added any new rock to my tank since I set it up, other than dry rock.

So check this out -

I have found about 10 of them so far. They must be digging these tiny shells out of the substrate. I have the tank deliberately stocked with extras, but none this tiny. I have seen teeny shells mixed in with the sand though.

Pretty sweet, huh?

 

[Laura]

Very cool! i bet if there were more teeny tiny shells there may be more tiny hermies too!
my friend used to have a reef tank. I would go over there to watch a movie and we would end up
watching the tank! When it was new and she really Good Live rock.. there were SO MANY new things
all the time.. and then she found she had mantis Shrimp.. nasty things...

 

[Skyler Nell]

Awww how cute!! That's so cool
Congrats! I hope they make it

 

[Mao Senpai]

That is amazing!

 

[Maggie Cummings]

Awesome, I am very impressed. Congratulations...

 

[Kristina]

Very cool! i bet if there were more teeny tiny shells there may be more tiny hermies too!
my friend used to have a reef tank. I would go over there to watch a movie and we would end up
watching the tank! When it was new and she really Good Live rock.. there were SO MANY new things
all the time.. and then she found she had mantis Shrimp.. nasty things...

I do the same thing, lol. I can sit and stare at it for hours. I love my salty tank.

I do like that you sometimes find cool things that crop up out of nowhere with the live rock. I just found some green clove polyps the other day that more or less magically appeared after four months But, one of the reason I use dry rock is that you don't get the nasty hitchhikers, and also it doesn't harm existing reefs.

I don't really think mantis shrimp are nasty - some people keep them in specialized tanks. They are pretty cool and come in some really neat colors. There are two types, spearers and smashers. They evolved to either spear fish or smash other inverts. They have their little niche in nature, just like everything else The smashers are so strong they can break the glass of a tank. For a two inch shrimp, that is quite a feat! They strike with the force of a RIFLE BULLET!

http://notexactlyrocketscience.wordpress.com/2006/08/28/mantis-shrimps-the-worlds-fastest-punch/

http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/msubpestmshrimp/a/aa110498.htm

Thanks for all the well wishes! Maggie - I am impressed with myself, lol!

 

[Sky2Mina]

Wow, they're tiny. Congratulations!

 

[dmarcus]

Thats is awesome...

 

[GeoTerraTestudo]

That's fantastic, Kristina! As a former aquarist, I am really excited for you.

 

[terryo]

This could only happen to you Kristina. Unbelievable!! Congrats....and I am soooooooooo jealous. I LOVE your SW tank so much. Can we see a picture of the proud parents? This is so interesting.

 

[pugsandkids]

Very, very cool! We were watching the Turbo Snails crawl on top of each other tonight, what the heck? How do snails have sex? Led to a very interesting discussion with my family

The baby Hermit is so tiny. Keep on doing whatever it is you are doing.

 

[dmmj]

snail sex is a big gooey messy act that is quite disgusting actually. So regarding hermit crabs if they are so hard to breed then those must be all WC adults I see in the malls and pet stores for like 5 bucks each.

 

[Zouave]

very cool!

 

[GeoTerraTestudo]

BTW - I love how there are actually snail shells tiny enough in your tank to support baby hermit crabs!

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Very, very cool! We were watching the Turbo Snails crawl on top of each other tonight, what the heck? How do snails have sex? Led to a very interesting discussion with my family

The baby Hermit is so tiny. Keep on doing whatever it is you are doing.

Snails are hermaphroditic and have both male and female gonads. Mating between two snails is basically a competition to see which individual can fertilize the other one first, since it's cheaper to fertilize somebody else with your sperm, than to get impregnated and carry around eggs.

Mating between two snails looks kind of like a sword fight. Their penises are long and thorn-like, and the one who stabs the other one first and inseminates it before it gets stabbed itself wins.

The weirdest thing about snail sex is that, because of their shells, the gonads and anus are right next to the head. So when they want to eliminate waste or mate, they use the side of their head as the site of all this activity.

Very strange stuff, which is why I keep tortoises instead.

 

[Kristina]

So regarding hermit crabs if they are so hard to breed then those must be all WC adults I see in the malls and pet stores for like 5 bucks each.

Yes, all of them. Every single pet hermit used to be a happy little wild hermit.

Snails are hermaphroditic and have both male and female gonads.

Not all snails are hermaphrodites I used to breed pomacea bridgesii, spixis and black trapdoors. With all three you have to have a male/female pair in order to produce young.

The trapdoors antennae are how you sex them. The females have two long, straight antennae, while the males have one that is straight and one that is curved into a spiral. The spiral is actually a modified sex organ - aka the penis. Pretty crazy, lol.

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This could only happen to you Kristina. Unbelievable!! Congrats....and I am soooooooooo jealous. I LOVE your SW tank so much. Can we see a picture of the proud parents? This is so interesting.

Thanks Terry I'll get some pics of them. I was trying to take some pictures of the tank yesterday, but they all turned out funny colored, lol. I'll give it a shot again

 

[Kristina]

Well, I just went on Ebay and bought 500 of the tiniest shells I could find... Let's see what happens now!

 

[GeoTerraTestudo]

Not all snails are hermaphrodites I used to breed pomacea bridgesii, spixis and black trapdoors. With all three you have to have a male/female pair in order to produce young.

Oh, okay, gotcha. Wow, nice to see someone who really knows her stuff!