Tiny Jellyfish everywhere! Read the last few posts

[austin01]

I have hundreds of small organisms attached to the glass and live rock in my tank. They have been multiplying rapidly over the past few weeks. They look like they have a circular body (some of the larger ones look like many circular egg like structures in the middle) What distinguishes them, however, are small tentacle like structures coming out from the body. They rangre from maybe 5 or so of these to over 20 from what I can make out. The tentacles sticking out of the body make them look somwhat like an urchin of some kind, but they are only the size of the tip of a dull pencil. Any ideas? They are worring me due to ho fast they are multiplying.

 

[austin01]

Is that some kind of copepod egg sack? And the other thing is that I want to clean the glass, but if these little guys are copepods, I don't want to crush them with the magnet. Any ideas?

 

[volitan]

I agree with Baron. From the description, these don't sound like any pods that I've seen.

 

[wrassecal]

check out <a href="http://www.reefs.org/hhfaq/indes.html" target="_blank">http://www.reefs.org/hhfaq/indes.html</a> they list a lot of hithchikers and have picks of pods and such. You might find your critters pictured and explained there. Good luck

 

[austin01]

Thanks for the ideas. I don't believe, however, that they are pods or worms, and I checked out the hitchiker website link and could not find my answer there either. They don't have a spiral shell, so I don't think they are a worm. It appears that they can move their tentacles to filter things in the water. I sat and stared at a larger one (maybe a few mm in diameter including the tentacles) and it appeared that some of the tentacles were used to stay attached to the glass and the others were pulsing much like a xenia polyp. They did not do it in a constant rhythm though, more jolty and each one could move independently. I'm at a loss. I just want to know if they are allies or enemies. If anyone else has any other sites they recommend please let me know.

 

[austin01]

I changed the name of the post to catch everyone's attention. I'll make good on the offer though.....if someone tells me what all these little creatures that have me worried sick are.

 

[farieslayer]

is just a some kind of bugs, i know what u saying, they have circular body and have many tiny legs, they spread around pretty quick.
amphipod are the one with many legs and stick like body. copepod are the one with curly body and they came out at night to hunt or put food near the rock sometime they came out and drag the food in.

 

[nacl-h2o]

Does it look like this?
<a href="http://www.reefcentral.com/vbulletin/attachment.php?s=e1066ab11ae72f39b88fcdb9587f385f&postid=570339" target="_blank">tube worms</a>
If it does their a type of tube worm. this picture is magnifed these things are vary small. The diameter of a pencil lead.

 

[cowfish]

they are just some type of tube worm they are harmless but most people don't like them many people have posted asking about these including me i hav millions literally i hate them
but im geting a cowfish soon a new one
my old cowfish used bite these off
maybe a manderine might bite these off other fish

 

[wrassecal]

I have those tube worms and my mandarin ignores them. I agree with farieslayer, unless you can come up with a pic for us I'm voting amphipods. When I first had them the best my mind could come up with to describe them was they looked like little galaxies

 

[stupid_naso]

So that's what it is, tube worms. I have so many of those in my tank. I thought they are like baby snails or something, though I do saw one baby snail. I guess 10 astrea snails work together create one turbo snail, weird huh? Interested?
stupid_naso

 

[stupid_naso]

So that's what it is, tube worms. I have so many of those in my tank. I thought they are like baby snails or something, though I do saw one baby snail. I guess 10 astrea snails work together create one turbo snail, weird huh? Interested?
stupid_naso

 

[austin01]

Thats what they are...... the last picture on the post! So are these jellyfish harmful? I literally have hundreds of them. They are all over the glass and rocks in my tank. I'm sure they came from the live rock, but what do they do and should I be concerned?

 

[austin01]

I did some research on these jellyfish creatures and turns out that they multiply rapidly under favorable water conditions. Nice to know that I have favorable water conditions cause I can literally be distracted for a few seconds, look back at my tank and there are a hundred more of these little guys.
But it also turns out that they eat copepods.... so I thought today was as good a day as any to take the magnet out and clean the glass. I'm sure I killed at least a few of them. I did notice the other day that the copepod population in my refugium was down a bit.