Snail poop?

[Dr. Peter Venkman]

Hey everyone!

I woke up this morning to a large amount of small cylinder things on my sand bed. They are all in the center of my tank. At first I thought it was snail poop, but the amount of it, all showing up all over night, makes me think it might be something else. I've never experienced anything like this in any of my tanks, so I'm not really sure what it is. None of them are moving, I don't think they are worms, and they are a blackish/green color.. I took a bunch of pics, but only 2 turned out ok. Any input on this stuff would be great.

 

[neonreef3d]

how old is the tank? and what was the last thing you introduced to it?

 

[Dr. Peter Venkman]

how old is the tank? and what was the last thing you introduced to it?

Tank is 7 months old and the last thing I introduced was a Tomini Tang. I put him in the tank about 10 days ago. He's a small guy

 

[neonreef3d]

Tank is 7 months old and the last thing I introduced was a Tomini Tang. I put him in the tank about 10 days ago. He's a small guy

i would take a sample out of the tank and take a closer look, maybe invest in a cheap $20 hand held microscope that zooms 30x to 100 x ..... that will give you a clue at least to what it is.

see if it breaks up easily, maybe take a look at night while the lights are off to see maybe some sort of hitchhiker came in there and is making a mess. other than that, im as puzzled as you are.

 

[Dr. Peter Venkman]

i would take a sample out of the tank and take a closer look, maybe invest in a cheap $20 hand held microscope that zooms 30x to 100 x ..... that will give you a clue at least to what it is.

see if it breaks up easily, maybe take a look at night while the lights are off to see maybe some sort of hitchhiker came in there and is making a mess. other than that, im as puzzled as you are.

That's actually a good idea, about looking at then under scope. My minor in college was geology, so I have plenty of scopes/rock glasses. Yeah, this is weird for sure. I'm haven't been home to see how it is now, but I wonder if my snails and crabs have cleaned it, or if they are even eating it...

 

[JGT]

They look more like hermit poop. Snail poop is shorter and wider. Hermit poop is long and thin.

 

[Dr. Peter Venkman]

They look more like hermit poop. Snail poop is shorter and wider. Hermit poop is long and thin.

I do have a lot of hermits, I just find it weird that it all showed up at once. I guess the hermits had a poop party