HELP!! massive infestation.

[wozza]

ok I got back from lunch today to find thousands of tiny little white things all over the front and back glass and in the small amount algae in my tank.
They are defiantly alive because I can see them moving they are quite fast as well, they basically look like rice the kind you boil and eat!! But only about half a millimetre if that long, are these pods??
Cheers James



here is a pic but its not that good!

[fish outa wata]

defintely looks like pods to me.

[Ninong]

I can't make out what you have from your photograph. Based on what I can see and your description of their size, I think we can rule out amphipods. Amphipods look like tiny shrimp. Everytime I rinsed the foam filter in my sump, it was crawling with amphipods. I always knocked them off into a bowl and dumped them back into the tank to feed the fairy wrasses. All of my amphipods were ~5 mm in size.

You may wish to review Dr. Ron Shimek's article and see if you can figure out what they might be. I had a lot of copepods in my tank (zillions of them) but none of them were white and they didn't come out when the lights were on. I believe all of my copepods were bottom-dwelling harpacticoid copepods. After the lights went out at night, I could see zillions of them scurrying over the live rock and the sandbed. I had to use a red astronomer's flashlight for this. If I used a regular white flashlight, they would all scurry back into hiding.

I hate to hazard a guess as to what you have because that would require a really sharp micrograph of these critters. You may be able to remove a few and examine them yourself under a magnifying glass to see what they look like?

Good luck!

[wozza]

exelent link ninong, thats just the kind of article i have been looking for.
I can deffently say that some of the things are copepods and the other white things are about 1/5th of the size of the copepods, im gonna go and guess that the smaller ones are baby copepods maybe?
also i have some things that look like this on the side of the glass,
they dont move from the spot they are on and the leg things wave in the water current, any ideas?

[Ninong]

I'm afraid I have no idea what you may have. And even if I had an idea, I would be hesitant to post it because it would be nothing more than a wild guess without detailed photographs, something that is obviously impossible in this situation.

[wozza]

ok no worrys, ill just keep an eye on it!
cheers james