Aquarium Pests or Friends?

[HarrisonMG]

I was looking at my glass, and saw (well, millions) of tiny white dots. Guessing these are the eggs for the thousands of tiny white worms squiggling on my glass. Mixed with these, are some creatures (maybe rotifers?) that I don't know, and then a bunch of aiptasia, maybe a few dozen. They are each probably a 10th to a hundredth of a millimeter--I can't see with my bare eyes.

Used 200x macro lens to shoot pics of tiny snippets...maybe some could ID? Are the worms harmful, and what about the others? I read online they sound like flatworms. But trust me when I tell you there are millions of eggs.

I might be overfeeding cuz my cardinal ate a live hermit crab and some snails and thought he wasn't getting enough.
Nitrates 10
Phosphate 0.2

 

[teddscau]

Second photo looks like either a baby anemone (aiptasia?) or coral polyp. The third photo has some sort of copepod on the bottom centre of the shot, and the fifth looks like either an aiptasia or coral polyp (zoa?). Those are my best guesses. I'm sure the other members would know better.

 

[Subsea]

Mature tank is capable of supporting diverse invert community. Consider it live food for the filter feeders as these guys larvae swim about.

Selectively kill Aptasia. Use a toothbrush dipped in hydrogen peroxide, then brush Aptasia pest with tooth brush. Trust me. Even with tank water diluting hydrogen peroxide, you will oxidize Aptasia flesh away. If you use a syringe, you can direct inject hydrogen peroxide. The flesh disintegrates into the water as nutrient recycling, the H202 turns to H20.

 

[HarrisonMG]

Thanks. I will try the toothbrush method, as I do have another post just about aiptasia from a couple months ago when it started popping up everywhere.
The problem I was having was that the little guys are literally too small to see! (So I can't inject with a syringe)

But the other creatures are ok?

 

[teddscau]

Does hydrogen peroxide work for aiptasia? I had an outbreak of hydra in my 90g freshwater, and I found the H2O2 just seemed to annoy the hydra (which are related to anemones) more than anything. I actually tried soaking hydra in hydrogen peroxide for a minute, then placed them in a specimen container filled with tank water to see if they'd survive. They did, in fact, survive.

As for the other critters, it's hard to ID worms when they're that small. But for now, I'd just be focused o the aiptasia. And copepods are fine.

 

[mcgyvr]

Good site to bookmark here..
https://www.lionfishlair.com/hitchhikers-guide/
Has most of the common stuff

 

[HarrisonMG]

Yeah...I found a guy about half a centimeter tall on my trumpet coral
And a 1 cm on my live rock.

For those guys I can use Aiptaisia X

 

[oldhead]

Can't really picture a cardinal eating a hermit or snail


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[HarrisonMG]

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[LeJeune981]

Mature tank is capable of supporting diverse invert community. Consider it live food for the filter feeders as these guys larvae swim about.

Selectively kill Aptasia. Use a toothbrush dipped in hydrogen peroxide, then brush Aptasia pest with tooth brush. Trust me. Even with tank water diluting hydrogen peroxide, you will oxidize Aptasia flesh away. If you use a syringe, you can direct inject hydrogen peroxide. The flesh disintegrates into the water as nutrient recycling, the H202 turns to H20.

Can I do this around zoas?
I've got a few that are inside my zoas

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[ramseynb]

Can I do this around zoas?
I've got a few that are inside my zoas

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I've never used it for aiptasia, but I've dipped many zoa frags in H2O2 to kill off algae. Zoas will be fine.

 

[Subsea]

Can I do this around zoas?
I've got a few that are inside my zoas

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First, to address the comment about Aptasia being resistant to hydrogen peroxide in a bath treatment. As a “dip on steroids”, I mix 3% hydrogen peroxide as a 10% solution with tank water and soak for 10 minutes. It is collateral damage to any algae/macro. It is also collateral damage to micro inverts: bristle worms, micro starfish, pods, Red Planaria and the list goes on.
Aptasia are immune to this treatment. For Aptasia eradication, the membrane slime coat must be penetrated, thus toothbrush or needle injection. I use 35% concentrate. In extreme cases, I brought rock to surface of tank and droped concentrate directly on Aptasia. Eradication is instantly, it can get messy. If you are doing a bunch of large pest, it is best to do outside of tank.

If the spacing is tight, you may take out some of the zoos. So what, they will grow back after the Aptasia are gone.