Tons of Plankton After Lights Out

[CheifReeferNB]

I have never really used live rock/live sand in a setup. Most recently I bought some live rock and 150lbs of live sand from gulf live rock to start a new aquarium. Six months later, the aquarium is teeming with life at night. Is this normal?

There is almost a cloud of microfauna swimming through the water column every evening. Tiny copepods to creatures the size of a BB, it is really super interesting. There’s zooplankton tonight that look like tiny mysis shrimp. There’s so many different things swimming around I couldn’t possibly count all the different ones.

I attached a video I took. Let me know if you guys experience this same thing with your live rock and sand. While I resent the Bryopsis and gorilla crabs that came with it, this part almost makes it worth it.

 

[13rodo]

Someone can correct me if I'm off base here, but pretty sure this is what you want :) Live rock is there to bring in biodiversity.

 

[slingfox]

Awesome video! I wish I had that kind of activity in my display tank at night. I used to have copepods swimming all over my glass day and night. After I added my fish the population cratered likely due to predation. I know there are still there but the population is a fraction of what it once was.

What kind of fish do you have in your tank?

 

[CheifReeferNB]

Awesome video! I wish I had that kind of activity in my display tank at night. I used to have copepods swimming all over my glass day and night. After I added my fish the population cratered likely due to predation. I know there are still there but the population is a fraction of what it once was.

What kind of fish do you have in your tank?

I have 3 tangs, a foxface, a pair of clowns and 5 anthias. No wrasses or mandarins yet. I believe the other part of the reason there’s so much activity is the live sand I bought is very rubble like. Gives them so much areas to hide and reproduce relative to a fine grand sand.