Pods or not?

[moorea2]

Hi All!
I posted a few days ago asking what is on my glass. I got two fast replies telling me they were pods. I described the creatures on the glass as follows:
"if you look closely at my glass it is swarming with little itty bitty things. They are moving around so they are not snail eggs. They are very tiny varying in color from off white to light brown and not round."
This is really the best description I can give as they are to tiny to say anything else. I have since spoken to more people who have said that they could be tiny seastars, bad worms etc.
So how can I tell what is really on my glass? I tried using a magnifying glass to offer a better description, but it wasn't a good one.
Do pods normally inhabit glass? I do not see them on the sand or rocks.
The glass is sworming with them! I noticed them while I was cleaning the glass the other day and stopped. The only place you do not see tons of them is where I cleaned.
The tank is 120 gallon DT with a 75 gallon sump/fuge has been cycled for about 8 months and has 200 lbs of live rock, 1 inch live sand in the DT 3.5" in the fuge.
I hate to be a pain about this, but if they are as suggested by another sorce possibly bad worms, I'd like to figure out how I can better ID them to give a better description and find out what is going on.
If they are pods will using the magnet on the glass kill them? I do not want to kill pods.

 

[nick76]

are they like pencil dot size? I dont have those type of pods on my glass, I have ones that are about 1cm in length and they crawl on my rocks, but there are many different kinds of pods. For Example I have little tiny things that live on my emerald crab. I think thats what your talking about. Usuing the magnet will probably squish them. Just try to clean around them if u must.

 

[moorea2]

OK maybe these pictures will help.... they really stink though and in most of them they look bigger then they are!

 

[moorea2]

heres one more:

 

[michaeltx]

in this pisture they almost look like baby asteria stars or another species.
do like look like sand fleas or something else?
Mike

 

[moorea2]

so how can one ID the unidentifiable? If it is something bad I want to do something about it. It's not ick is it?

 

[blizz75]

I have them in every one of my tanks and have had no prblems. Do they resemble super micro feather dusters? nothing to worry about. just use ur magfloat if u dont like them

 

[noodlemmy]

Originally Posted by moorea2
so how can one ID the unidentifiable? If it is something bad I want to do something about it. It's not ick is it?
It's not ich, that lives on fish, not on the glass.
How fast do they move? To me, they kinda look like baby snails from the pictures.

 

[moorea2]

some of them do not seem to be moving while others are treking along at a fairly good pace. The husband says "they are scurrying around prety quick and can probably cover an inch in two seconds"
They do not look anything like feather dusters (to me anyway) they look like little moving specs. I do NOT see any details, like little eyes or pinchers or legs.

 

[tankyou]

They look pretty big to me, probably could be identified with just a magnifying glass. Failing that buy a jewelers loop.

 

[michaeltx]

more than likely they are a baby pods if I remeber right maybe LOl they showed up after you pulled out a filter to clean it or something like that. if so they are more than likely baby pods that have developed fully that was in the filter media and became dislodged into the tank. IMO I wouldnt worry about them you will see many many many things in the tank even years after its been set up that you didnt even know was there.
Mike

 

[hot883]

They look like baby snails to me. I have them congregate on my front glass evry now and again when the lights are off.

 

[1journeyman]

Yup. I vote snails.

 

[moorea2]

No I never mentioned pulling out a filter or anything like that...
but here is an interesting thing that it never even occured to me to mention (maybe it should have.) Exactly to weeks ago today my Angel fish died. My husband was trying to get him out of the tank and he had to pull the rock structure down completely and rebuild it! I am uncertain when the little things on the glass showed up but I noticed them about 4 days ago!
So now on my list of suspects:
1.) Pods
2.) Snails
3.) Star fish
4.) Bad Worms
5.) Feather Dusters
???
I'm going to get a magnifying glass tomorrow and see if I can't narrow this down.