[ick sucks]

hey i recently noticed small shrimps or maybe copepods in my tank. they run all over the sand and live rock. the fish seem to like eating them. One thing i found cool about theese shrimps is that they seem to be eating a treamendous amount of my hair algae! every morning i would see theese grazed patches of hair algae completly nibbled down to nothing(the root). I am guessing that theese shrimps are feasting on the algae. Any information on this would be appreciated.

by the way i noticed that a few of the larger shrimps were a bright green color, i guess they were feasting?

maybee this is why coral reefs do not contain large amounts of algae? from the all the shrimps on the live rocks in the ocean i would suppose it never gets a chance to grow?

anyone got any info?

[Samper]

As for your shrimps..........err whatever they are I have no idea about them eating your hair algae. I can tell you this. When I get up in the morning my hair algae seems to have receeded quite a bit but by the end of the day what little bit I have is back. Algaes are present on the reefs but the ocean is so huge that it has a way of dealing with it's pests that is very hard for us to mimic.