What the?

KK's Reef

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So, turned my lights on around 11:00 PM just to have a look at the critters at night. Noticed a bunch of these "things" swimming about in the water column. They're tiny, maybe a couple of centimeters long. I posted a video, sorry that it's not clear. The best way I can describe them is, they're white, they look like tadpoles, but they are oriented vertically instead of horizontally. They move with the water current, but they do dart about randomly once in a while. I'm pretty sure they're not pods, because I haven't introduced any. I only have two coral frags so far, and I dipped them before placing them in the tank. I do have about 8 hermit crabs and snails that I added along the way, and it's possible they could've hitchhiked on the shells. The tank has been running for a couple of months and this is the first time I've noticed them.

I have a juvenile clown that I just treated for fungus and he's ready to go back into the tank. I was hoping somebody can ID these "things" before I add the clown back to the tank.

Thanks in advance.
 

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Jilly92

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So, turned my lights on around 11:00 PM just to have a look at the critters at night. Noticed a bunch of these "things" swimming about in the water column. They're tiny, maybe a couple of centimeters long. I posted a video, sorry that it's not clear. The best way I can describe them is, they're white, they look like tadpoles, but they are oriented vertically instead of horizontally. They move with the water current, but they do dart about randomly once in a while. I'm pretty sure they're not pods, because I haven't introduced any. I only have two coral frags so far, and I dipped them before placing them in the tank. I do have about 8 hermit crabs and snails that I added along the way, and it's possible they could've hitchhiked on the shells. The tank has been running for a couple of months and this is the first time I've noticed them.

I have a juvenile clown that I just treated for fungus and he's ready to go back into the tank. I was hoping somebody can ID these "things" before I add the clown back to the tank.

Thanks in advance.
Probably copepods from rock if you got live rock. The pods I've seen in my reef dip lived afterwards
 
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KK's Reef

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Hi Jilly,

My rock came from an LFS's display, but they were dry for months before I cycled my tank.

The frags were dipped in Revive for 15 minutes and I saw a couple of spider looking things fall off from them.

Pods tend to stick to the glass, rock, and substrate, and not float around, no?
 

Jilly92

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Hi Jilly,

My rock came from an LFS's display, but they were dry for months before I cycled my tank.

The frags were dipped in Revive for 15 minutes and I saw a couple of spider looking things fall off from them.

Pods tend to stick to the glass, rock, and substrate, and not float around, no?
Hi Jilly,

My rock came from an LFS's display, but they were dry for months before I cycled my tank.

The frags were dipped in Revive for 15 minutes and I saw a couple of spider looking things fall off from them.

Pods tend to stick to the glass, rock, and substrate, and not float around, no?
Ya I don't really see pods looking tadpolish lol. Do they have legs?
 
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KK's Reef

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hey attiland,


It's possible. I looked up a video on mysis shrimp and the movement is similar. How the hell did it get in there, though?

Forgot to add... the only thing I added today was a capful of Dr. Tim's One and Only to boost the bacteria after a water change.
 

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hey attiland,


It's possible. I looked up a video on mysis shrimp and the movement is similar. How the hell did it get in there, though?

Forgot to add... the only thing I added today was a capful of Dr. Tim's One and Only to boost the bacteria after a water change.
If you never feed live than came as egg on coral frags. Me and my fish would be delighted if I would have a mysis “outbreak “
 

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Also to add dips are not 100%. Unless its a really nasty aggressive chemical dip. Even the bayer treatment doesn't kill everything, but most everything. Cant see really. Catch one if you can. Good out of tank pic in a drop of water would be helpful.
 
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Holy crap, now I know what these things are. Baby hermit crabs!!

Our scarlet hermit has been inactive the last several days. The last two days especially, it hasn't moved. It wedged itself in a nook in the rock work. I thought was dead. I moved it to the sand bed and made sure it was alive. It stayed in the same spot all day. Tonight, with the lights off, I decided to check on it. I turned the lights on and it started to crawl out of its shell and this filamentous thing on it's back started to move and all these little "tadpoles" came darting out of it. I guess it was carrying eggs in its shell this whole time and when they hatched she let them swim out.

Soon the water column was filled with a hundred of these things. I turned the pump off and some of them made it to the sandbed and the rocks. The ones that stayed in the water column were picked off by the clownfish. The clownfish's belly is big as hell, he can barely swim.

Gonna turn the return pump back on in a few minutes and I'm sure most of them will be sucked into the filtration or get eaten by the clown. Too bad. It'd be nice to see baby scarlets crawling around.

Super trippy to see hermit crab birth in action. lol. This hobby always surprises.
 

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