Pix & ID: Critters that come in your rocks: the good and the bad.

Do copepods every congregate on glass? I have a spot on my front glass which always has a few tiny creatures that move around on the glass - less than 10 of them - right where my return pump dishes out half of it's water. They are so small I can't possibly get a picture - in fact I can't even get much detail with a 10x magnifying glass. They aren't white or black - just some kind of fleshy color in-between. I've also noticed them on my back glass in my QT since seeding it from my DT.
 
Yes they do. That's usually the only place you can see them, too small to see on the rocks usually. I believe I posted a pic earlier that has a copepod in it.
 
WOW! after seing some of these pics i have noticed just how many pods i really have. i finally recognized the copepods on the glass, i thought they were micro bubbles from my skimmer. among them though were (from sk8r's description) flatworms. they are listed in the "bad" category. just how bad are they and if i need to get rid of them, how? i also notice alot of these white strings coming out all over the place and eventually they "pull" themselves back into where ever they came from (looks like little holes in my rocks). most of them seem to be coming from under the little rock my zoo is attached to. any help with these please?
 
ID on these hitchhikers please

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2.jpg


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and these guys on the glass
5.jpg


Thanks


SushiGirl
Premium Member




Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Fort Worth, TX USA
Posts: 3,174
First one is red bubble algae. Not sure on the little red thing below in the first pic, too hard to see.
2nd pic is an aiptasia on the left and looks like a zoa on the right.
3rd pic are hydroid jellyfish.
 
Bens_Reef said:
WOW! after seing some of these pics i have noticed just how many pods i really have. i finally recognized the copepods on the glass, i thought they were micro bubbles from my skimmer. among them though were (from sk8r's description) flatworms. they are listed in the "bad" category. just how bad are they and if i need to get rid of them, how? i also notice alot of these white strings coming out all over the place and eventually they "pull" themselves back into where ever they came from (looks like little holes in my rocks). most of them seem to be coming from under the little rock my zoo is attached to. any help with these please?
Click to expand...

Since there are no pics, we need more info.

What color are the flatworms?

White string things could be many things: digitate hydroids, spinoid worms, spaghetti worms, micro brittle star legs, peanut worms, or other worms. Really need a pic for that one, or you can look through this thread or google the names agove & see if you recognize anything.
 
i tried to get pics but they are just too small, the flat worms i am seeing are brown and just a little bigger than the copepods on the glass, maybe 1 mm dia. i was thinking the strings may be the digitate hydroids but not 100% ive looked up pics but not sure still
 
I did a thread on this, but since this is for ID's I thought I would ask what this could be. The reddish stuff is slimey and is cyano from what I have gotten for a response. The trickey part is what the little green fern like things are growing out of the cyano. I had bryopsis on a piece of rock but manually removed it from the rock and rinsed in three different buckets before being placed in the 46 gallon tank where I have this powerhead. The stuff is only growing on the powerhead and no where else.

Selling007.jpg
 
Weird. It could be a) bryopsis, not a good thing b) cheatomorpha algae, desirable but not desirable there---being stuck down by the cyano.
 
I find it very odd... Either way it probably won't be there by Monday. I am thinking of soaking in vinegar and water overnight because I want to get the coralline off of it any way. Would be nice to know what it is though. Doesn't look like the Bryopsis I have had in my tank. It could be though that I didn't notice my last piece of Bryopsis until it was a decent size.
 
I view spionids as just nice little cleaners. Tangs eat them, which is kind of a shame, in my book. It's among the little things I enjoy sitting in front of my tank and watching in action.
 
These pics are great and are helping me to ID several things in my tank, but please label them as to good guys and bad guys!:worried2:
 
Take it that the list of bad guys is given in the first post. The rest are either good guys or just things you find in your tank that don't do any harm.

The short version of bad guys: the things to trust least are 1) any crab but a micro-hermit 2) any shrimp with large claws...yep, this includes the showy coral-banded, a notorious fish-eating predator many newbies are talked into buying. 3) any worm with tentacles on its head. 4) flatworms---little roundish critters, match-head size, with a fork in the tail: you will see them on your glass or rock. I will add 5) the green serpent star, again, sold to newbies---but it is a fish-eater if it gets the chance, like at night, with fish that sleep on the sand and in burrows, and 6) the elephant-ear mushroom, a huge showy hairy brownish shroom that will capture and suffocate fishes that chance to perch on it.

All the rest tend to be neutral or just nice free cleaners, and the more variety, the healthier your tank. If your sand swarms with creepy-crawlies at night---good job!
 
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Hey guys, I just today put my live rock in my tank with my live sand. I have a few hitchhikers I am curious about and that I can't identify. I know these pictures aren't ideally clear since they were taken with my phone, but I think you can kinda still see.

The first is what I THINK might be a eunicid worm. It actually looks like 2 crossed over another.
IMG_20111128_195730800x600.jpg


This one is just poking out of the rock, not sure what it could be.
IMG_20111128_195454800x600-1.jpg


This has hairlike tentacles going out from a circular base.
IMG_20111128_195436800x600.jpg


Again, sorry for the less than good quality pictures.
 
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