Help Identify NJ Native Inverts

[Kai]

Hi everyone,
My dad decided to 'help out' my tank and brought home a bunch of inverts in a cooler from Atlantic Highlands 07716. I put everything in a 10 gal to cycle it for now while I get my 29 gal set up. He brought home probably half a dozen 'grass shrimp', a clam (3 inches), about a dozen or so snails all less than 1 inch most are around 3/4, no idea what kind, most of them have disappeared in the sand, two like to climb on the glass, some seem to look like sifting snails?, a little hermit crab maybe .5" , and two small crabs (body is .5" and the legs bring it to 1 inch). There's also 3 killie bait fish in there that are going back this weekend, one seems to be turning a sort of neon yellow on its belly. I'm thinking it might be because of the ammonia so tomorrow I'll replace some of the water and see if it helps. There's supposedly also a baby conch in the mix. There's two little balls, they seem to have eggs on them/are eggs, they're soft to the touch.

Does anybody have any idea what these might be? Will I need to get rid of some or all of them when I start building my reef tank. Also how worried should I be about any sort of illnesses, I have 20lbs of caribsea sand, and 9 pounds of rock, dry and live in there that I was cycling when all of the other things were brought back and now I'm worried that the rock or the sand might have issues when I get corals and fish going in there. If there are going to be any issues with any of these inverts I could easily send them back this weekend.

Water temp is 80, salinity is 1.023, pH is reading 8.2, up from the high 7s the past two days (tank is only on day 3), ammonia is up from .5 on days one and two to 4ppm today. Nitrite is finally starting to get a reading of .5ppm, and still no nitrate reading.
Thanks

 

[DangerDave]

The shrimp are grass/glass/ghost shrimp. I'm sure there are more than one species. We catch them for bait by me. I used to catch them for feeders for my brackish estuary tank. I wouldn't for my reef as there were always parasites on them, fairly big ones too. They would die in the brackish tank. The same for the killies, there are some really cool ones you can catch. I don't know the names of them, but my favorite were the ones with orange bellies and silver spots on them. They would group on the bottom of the tank and move around like a hawkfish would.

Are the snails blackfooted? Those are the ones I would catch down by me (Little Egg Harbor/Great bay).

I'm sure that someone with more experience with the local species will chime in soon.

Good luck!

Dave

 

[MadReefer]

I don't know identification. I did collect hermit crabs, snails and some blenny.
The snails were toxic, black in color so be careful.
The crabs and blenny would prefer cooler waters then what we set our tanks at.

 

[The_Codfather]

The Snails look like Mud Snails (hard to see from that pic)...If so...They can carry a parasite that causes Swimmer's Itch..So if you start coming up in a rash after you've been playing around with that tank (Hands/arms) it's probably that...We had a Member who had tons of them...He ended up going to 3 dermatologists who couldn't ID the rash and he was told he probably have to leave the hobby...I saw all the snails in his tank and told him it was Swimmer's Itch...We got all the snails out of his tank... well let's just say...No more rashes after that

 

[Kai]

Oh that is really good to know! I have been experiencing that a bit after sticking my hands in the water but I've been brushing it off to environmental allergies. How do I get rid of that? I'll get rid of all of the native things tonight or tomorrow and send them back to the ocean this weekend, but what do I do about the rock and sand in there? Are there any things in there that you think I'd be able to keep? Would the clam be okay to stick around or will it end up carrying that same parasite? I don't have anything purchased besides the sand and the rock so if I need to treat anything now's the time.
Edit: Do you think I'd also have issues if I got sand from the shore or do I need to bite the bullet and purchase it as well? I was thinking it would be beneficial to get some natural bacteria and everything in there, but I don't want to cause a bigger headache.

 

[Kai]

I tried to get a bitter picture but they're rather tricky to photograph. My dad hangs a bucket off the back of his boat in a muddy area and that's where the snails came from so if the name comes from the environment I'm sure that's what they are.

 

[Wilson]

To be safe, I personally would cycle new sand and rock from a trusted source. Who knows what those critters/sand could be carrying. Plus they might carry stuff and be immune to it, but when you start stocking livestock, those may not have the same immunity because they've never encounter it before.. being from a different region and all.. just my opinion.

 

[Kai]

That makes sense, I don't want to start out five steps behind and add to the trouble I've already started with the critters going with the new sand and rock. What if I were to bake the sand to kill anything in it? I know many small mammal and reptile keepers will get natural sand and bake it in small batches in the oven to kill anything that might be in it.

 

[MadReefer]

You could bake / dry it out.
I would buy dry sand as It's fairly cheap and seed it with live sand from a member here near you or a LFS.

 

[Wilson]

I'm a beginner reefer myself too, so maybe someone with more experience can weigh in. But baking would serve the purpose of killing various micro organisms, bacteria, etc. I'd be concerned with the subsequent decomposition of said organisms over time. And every time someone touches the sand, it's like a time release ammonia factory.. I would imagine.

 

[Kai]

Seems like it, maybe with that theory some extra sifting snails or something else that disturbs the sand might help out. If somebody comes along to say something we'll see that way, if not I'll try it in a small tank and update things here.

 

[diana a]

BAKING? I think you guys have misinterpreted the word and mean cooking rocks. Also newbies, you don't actually "cook" rocks on the stove or oven. When someone says cooking, the definition is really curing but so many newbies take it literal and try to cook their rock by boiling it, endangering their lives and those around them. Yet even some of the more experienced guys still use the term cooking. You should be careful of the terms you use.

 

[Kai]

I do actually mean baking sand, not rock. It's really common with small animal owners for sand baths or for reptiles. People usually wash it first, then you just spread out a layer of sand on a baking pan, and stick it in the oven, some people use 350* others do it a bit cooler, time is another thing that really depends, commonly about 20 minutes. You of course need to be very very careful, hot sand is well hot and can be dangerously so, but it's a very common practice so that whatever small animal doesn't risk catching anything from the bacteria or other things that might be in the sand.

 

[diana a]

My post was referring to rocks not sand

 

[Wilson]

I tried

 

[Kai]

My post was referring to rocks not sand

Gotcha, I was talking about sand before so I guess things just got mixed up

 

[The_Codfather]

Oh that is really good to know! I have been experiencing that a bit after sticking my hands in the water but I've been brushing it off to environmental allergies. How do I get rid of that? I'll get rid of all of the native things tonight or tomorrow and send them back to the ocean this weekend, but what do I do about the rock and sand in there? Are there any things in there that you think I'd be able to keep? Would the clam be okay to stick around or will it end up carrying that same parasite? I don't have anything purchased besides the sand and the rock so if I need to treat anything now's the time.
Edit: Do you think I'd also have issues if I got sand from the shore or do I need to bite the bullet and purchase it as well? I was thinking it would be beneficial to get some natural bacteria and everything in there, but I don't want to cause a bigger headache.

Yeah that looks like them...You can tell that one of them has it due to it climbing the glass...The parasite makes the snails go upwards ...There is a reason why they are called "Mud snails"... They like to be on the bottom and under, on the sand/mud..The parasite makes the snails go up so a bird eats the snail to help make the circle of life...Just take the snails out and that tank should be fine after a few WC's or just they will die off over time

 

[The_Codfather]

Oh I forgot to add...swimmers itch clears up by itself after a few days to a couple of weeks depending how bad it is

 

[Kai]

So just to be clear I should probably get rid of all of the things in there that came from the ocean and let the tank cycle on its own for a bit to let the swimmers itch clear out? There are a couple snails that were climbing the glass the first few days but most have stopped by now, do you mean it leaves them on its own or if I get rid of them it will clear out of my tank on its own? Thanks

 

[The_Codfather]

just get rid of the snails...everything should be ok ...or keep the snails and just wait to brake the circle...Swimmer itch is just the flatworm going in ya skin and dying where if they went into the stomach of a bird or small rodent the circle will carry on but it don't with humans unless you eat them and then you poop in ya tank....My friend kept adding snails to his tanks so he was topping up on the parasite