***Little White Micro Snowflake Looking Things on my Glass***

wethomas5

wethomas5

New Member
Hey all, Thanks to all of you for always being so willing to share your knowledge. I'm a newbie with a 55, probably have about 30 pounds of LR, 3 corals and 4 fish so far :) Question, I have these little white snowflake looking things on my glass. Dont really notice them moving, just sticking to the front...I can use my mag float and wipe the glass, and a few minutes later, they'll be back. Seemed like I had a million in my tank and I cleaned out all my filters good, but still have quite a few. Dont laugh, but not knowing anything about Salt water fish, my husband thought we had water fleas... (lol) A friend of mine has 3 salt water tanks, and he said he thought they could be little starfish? I dont have any starfish in the tank, so if that is it, where could they have come from? Anyway, was just curious if any of you had ever had such. Thanks!
 
teen

teen

Active Member
i have the hydroids to, there normal for a new tank, and they will go away with time. the only thing they can do is slightly sting fish.
 
rujelus22

rujelus22

Member
The second picture is a starfish if it has four legs it's Class: Astroidea if it has more it's a Pateriella there not really good but not really bad either.
 
ophiura

ophiura

Active Member
The sea star is not Pateriella it is Asterina, very very common in this hobby and pretty rarely a problem. As an aside, all seastars are in the class Asteroidea, and most have at least 5 arms. But the number of arms is not necessarily diagnostic, as is the case with Asterina stars. Now and then Asterina are a problem with coralline, even more rarely with soft corals and SPS corals. But most people have many of them, with no reported damage.
The first pic is Staurocladia. These are not common but not considered a problem. They will probably "bloom" and then disappear before you know it. Just one of those things.
 
dieselndix

dieselndix

Member
ya know.....now that you mention is....I havent seen any in about a week now....but for about 4 weeks, I had tons of them
 
radiolotek

radiolotek

Member
I have the hydroid all over my tank. Could it be from adding new rock? Tank has been up for 2 yr. I was told they would die off but they have been around for about 1 1/2 months
 
monalisa

monalisa

Active Member
Originally Posted by ophiura
The sea star is not Pateriella it is Asterina, very very common in this hobby and pretty rarely a problem. As an aside, all seastars are in the class Asteroidea, and most have at least 5 arms. But the number of arms is not necessarily diagnostic, as is the case with Asterina stars. Now and then Asterina are a problem with coralline, even more rarely with soft corals and SPS corals. But most people have many of them, with no reported damage.
The first pic is Staurocladia. These are not common but not considered a problem. They will probably "bloom" and then disappear before you know it. Just one of those things.
Agreed totally. My tank has a bunch of asterina stars in it, but then, my tank also has a ton of coraline at this point. They seem to help me out with keeping that at bay somewhat.
Also, I recall when I first set my tank up, at about 4-6 months or so, I had a bloom of Staurocladia, but really I only saw them one evening...wierd...
Lisa :happyfish
 
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