White "gnats"

[QuickCarl]

Today while my pumps were off during routine maintenance, I noticed several hundred white gnat looking things congregating at the surface. They are definitely alive, some more active than others; all on the surface.

All fish are fine, and I have never noticed these things before...anyone have any idea what they are?

75g F/O, no LR, very basic setup for over 1 yr. I did have a case of ich a couple of months ago, but treated w/copper and fine since.

Any input appreciated.

 

[Paintbug]

sounds like Copepods to me. do you have sand? did you use live sand? if not i dont know how they could have made it into the tank w/o LR or corals.

 

[QuickCarl]

No, I have crushed coral.

 

[sundance1]

I used cc in my first tank and had TONS of pods.They came in on the LR.

 

[Paintbug]

have you used anything from another tank. water, CC, pump, etc.??

 

[QuickCarl]

No, the only other tank I have is a quarantine, and I'm always careful to keep the two separate, other than moving fish from Q to display. Could they come in on fish? And, if thats what they are, what do I do about them?

Thanks for your help

 

[Paintbug]

if they are copepods they are good. fish love them. but im not sure if they will hitchhike with fish. look here under the pods section. http://www.melevsreef.com/id/kritter2.html see if anything looks close.

what do you feed your fish? anything live? frozen shrimp of any kind?

 

[QuickCarl]

Thanks for the link. The closest thing to what I have was baby brine shrimp, but there is no way this could be. I never feed live foods; strictly frozen stuff, pellets and flake. I haven't introduced a new fish in almost 3 months, although as small as these things are, its possible they've been there a while and only recently gotten numerous enough for me to notice...

I'm stumped

 

[Paintbug]

brine shrimp will come to the light. its highly possible that if you fed the tank some frozen that there may have been some eggs. then they hatched in your tank. thats how i ended up with my mysis shrimp population. atleast im pretty sure thats how they got there

 

[QuickCarl]

Well, I hope that's it. Baby brine shrimp doesn't sound too sinister. If I had a microscope I'd try looking at them through that, but odds are I wouldn't know what I was seeing anyway.

Paintbug, I very much appreciate your input on this. I'll let you know if I determine these are in fact brine...

 

[Paintbug]

you dont know how bad i want a nice microscope!! LOL just for these kinds of moments. and yes please update!!