tiny white things on glass.

[jammzoot]

Greetings All,
I am new to this hobby and have recently finished my cycle on a 125gal tank. I have 4 camelback shrimp, a coral banded shrimp, serpant star, blach urchent, 2 green crabs, a juvinal koran, and a juvinal sweetlips. I have 40lb live rock, and 3" cc in a plenum setup. I use a wet/dry filter and 1 powerhead.
I noticed today the reason the sweetlips is patroling the walls of the tank. There are thousands of tiny white creatures all over the glass. It seems to be sucting them up. Did my shrimp lay eggs and hatch? Is this some sort of lice? Sorry for the long post and any help would be most appreciated.

 

[dgbnyc]

Asked the same question recently,
They seem to be copopedes... don't know if I spelled that right or not.
They are a phytoplancton that many fish like to eat and seem to suggest a good tank.
Do a search with the proper spelling and you will get the info.

 

[madd catt]

Copods,Amphopods,Small snails,Sounds like you tank is doing good.

 

[jammzoot]

thx dgbnyc, I see that this question has been brought up on a few occasions. I dont think what I see are pods though as they are very active. They leave the glass, swim and return. But it sounds like they are benificial anyway from other posts. If anyone has more insite pls add. thanks everyone.

 

[wrassecal]

probably copepods and/or amphipods check out this link <a href="http://www.reefs.org/hhfaq/index.html" target="_blank">www.reefs.org/hhfaq/index.html</a> you'll probably find what you have. Have you looked at them with a strong magnifier so you know the shape?

 

[madd catt]

pods will do that,go up or down the glass, over rock,did you add any artemia salina {BRINE SHRIMP}they also in begining stagesare very small and do go on or off th glass.

 

[jammzoot]

matt/debi
thanks for the replys. I am going out for a magnifing glass now, hehe. The link is a great source of info. I didn't add any brine shrimp to the tank so I beleive that is ruled out. My hopes are they will look like the amphipods/copepods that are pictured there. The description seems to match. I will post when I return with the mag. -jim

 

[jammzoot]

After viewing these creatures with a magnifying glass, I would guess they most closely resemble copepods. They have not attached to the fish so I am hopeing they aren't the parisitic form. Here is a good overview of what I think I am seeing. Thanks all.
<a href="http://pandora.ucsd.edu/jaffelab/people/celeste/copepods.html" target="_blank">http://pandora.ucsd.edu/jaffelab/people/celeste/copepods.html</a>

 

[wrassecal]

Actually sounds like things are goin good. Kind of fun to look at aren't they. They get bigger but not much and live in your sand bed and live rock. Some fish eat them like mandarins. I'm starting a small tank just to grow them so I can keep a mandarin healthy and happy!