Small Clear White tubes among other things

[morairtym]

I just got some new snails from reefcleaners.org for my 20gl tank aside from getting way to many snails.

This was to add to my 3 Nerites and 6 Blue and Scarlet Hermit crabs.

Ordered
12 Dwarf Ceriths got 50-80
4 Nassarius got 10
5 Florida Ceriths got 7 + 1 hermit crab
4 Large & 5 Small to Medium Nerites got 6 Large 8 Small med

I noticed that there were these small clear white tubes in my tank on the rock and crushed coral.

I'm not sure what they are I have read on forums that others have seen similar things and they are sponges, worms and a few other things. Can anyone identify them.

Second thing is i want to get rid of my crushed coral and go to a sand only bottom so that the tank will look cleaner. Right now i have about 2" of sand in my tank and 3-4 inches of sand in my 10 gal refugium. There are also those tube things in there.

I have 3 fish and 3 formations with soft coral on them. There are 3 pieces of live rock in my tank and 3 other pieces of porous rock that I'm hoping to turn into live rock.

Now the tank has been set up for about 6th months now and im not sure what i can do to keep my sand coral and fish safe so i can remove the crushed coral.

Third what do i do with all the snails i got i think i have way to many now i have added all of them but the Dwarf Ceriths because im not sure what to do with them.

My salinity has been very stable at 1.024 and since i got rid of my filter media and put in a protein skimmer my nitrates, nitrites and ammonia have all stayed at 0. I have good circulation in my tank the 10gl refugium has a Lifegard Quiet One 2200 pump that i beleave is turning the water over at about 400 GPH with 2 small Hydor Koralia Nano 240 that move another 240 GPH of water in the tank. I positioned them to make as much turbulence as possible.

I want to add 1-2 more fish and add some more coral but there is not much room atm so i was thinking about removing some rock from the tank but i dont want to affect my filtration any ideas here??

Here is some more pictures of my tank
https://plus.google.com/photos/106789324968626223206/albums/5816390876574673121

And a youtube video of the tank
http://youtu.be/rPGY7-LYJxs


I didn't clean the all the algae off the tank to let the snails have some food and so that you could tell me if there is anything i should worry about. I have already dealt with red slime algae and don't have that anymore and have not had that in over 3-4 months. About when i added the protein skimmer.

 

[thegrun]

Sponges

 

[LeslieH]

Yup

 

[kallan]

Definitely sponges...they thrive in low light and low flow tanks. I'd go ahead and add all of the snails to your tank to help with the diatoms and replace the crushed coral.

Enjoy your tank! I'm sure you'll be seeing many different little creatures in there soon.

 

[morairtym]

So how should I go about replacing the crushed coral? I have 4 5gl buckets for mixing salt and doing water changes. Should I be ok with filling up the buckets from the tank and moving the live rock to one and the fish and coral to another and putting the snails and crabs in there own?

Will taking the crushed coral and disturbing the sand plus adding more sand hurt my tanks biological filter?

Can I down size on my rock to make room for more coral? And if I do should I add live rock to my refugium it only has the sand bed and macro algae in there now?

 

[thegrun]

I would use a 1/2" or 3/4" hose and siphon out the crushed coral. I would only remove and replace 1/3 of the crushed coral at a time, waiting a week between replacements.
If you remove rock from the DT I would add it back into the refugium if possible. Otherwise make rock removal very slow, no more than 5% a week.

 

[morairtym]

Ok i wanted to replace all the crushed coral at once because i wanted to put those small Dwarf Ceriths in the tank and not worry about sucking them out latter. There living in a 2 gal bucket with water from the tank right now.

As for the rocks i think for now im just going to leave them as is and only remove one when i get a new piece of coral. Unfortunately if you see my video and pics the rocks are very large and will have to be removed to take out the coral and are also makes it hard to remove 5% of them at a time...