Are these hydroid jellies?

[Tathamet]

Hi,

I started noticing these things showing up all over my glass the past couple days.

at first I thought they were some sort of little spiders or mites but after using a macro lens on the glass it doesn’t seem to be a spider (looks more like a snowflake through the macro lens). Now I’m thinking they’re hydroid jellies. Sigh lol.

you can see their size in comparison with some of the copepods next to them.


let me know what you think.

thanks,
Al

 

[TriggerFinger]

Yes they are! I see them from time to time, mostly after adding new coral. *knock on wood*, they haven’t caused any issues.

 

[TriggerFinger]

here’s one I took out. They swim like jelly fish, pretty cool!

 

[Tathamet]

here’s one I took out. They swim like jelly fish, pretty cool!

Oh yours actually looks like a jellyfish compared to mine lol. That is pretty cool!

I’ve always wanted jellyfish but not in my reef tank haha.

Do yours stay stationary on the glass as well?

 

[Double monti 61]

Hi I have them in my tank and they have survived for a while I still have them and have seen them swimming and then settle on the glass.

 

[Tathamet]

Hi I have them in my tank and they have survived for a while I still have them and have seen them swimming and then settle on the glass.

Ah ok interesting.

ive had colonial hydroids since I started my tank in January last year but I actually gave up on the tank due to having amphipods that destroyed anything I put in there. Was very frustrating.

So ive basically left it sitting on its own losing about 50-60% of water from evaporation before topping it off up until 2 or three months ago when I cleaned it out With a bunch of 100% water changes, rescaped the rock and started maintaining it again.

during that time I lost all pods pretty much right away. No sign of bristle worms or vermetid or any type of worm anymore except for one.

Out of the survivors I’ve found 1 black peanut worm. A tunicate, some sort of clear muscle looking bivalve that I didn’t even know I had. It was moving around the rock It was on when I rescaped.
Most of the hydroids were gone that I could tell except for one known patch that I noticed was still alive. I super glued over It couple weeks ago.

this is my first time seeing the jellies so I must still have some hydroids hiding in there somewhere lol.

 

[TriggerFinger]

Yea, I actually plucked that off the sump wall because I didn’t know what it was. It looked like your pic when it was on the wall.

 

[Tathamet]

Yea, I actually plucked that off the sump wall because I didn’t know what it was. It looked like your pic when it was on the wall.

Oh ok about how big was yours? Mine are so small you can barely see them unless youre a few inches from the glass. Maybe 1-2mm at most. I’m assuming they will grow though.

 

[TriggerFinger]

Very tiny...here’s another shot with the 3mL pipette I used to suck it up. The blue underneath is the lid to a small jar of pellet food. Hopefully you can gauge the size...

 

[Tathamet]

Very tiny...here’s another shot with the 3mL pipette I used to suck it up. The blue underneath is the lid to a small jar of pellet food. Hopefully you can gauge the size...

Yes that helps thanks! They look to be a few times bigger than mine at the moment but are verrry tiny indeed. Hopefully they don’t cause too many problems. They are pretty fascinating creatures though at least haha.

 

[TriggerFinger]

Are these the ones that turn into colonial hydroids? I’ve never seen those in my tanks, only the jelly swimmers. Kinda nervous now...

 

[Tathamet]

Are these the ones that turn into colonial hydroids? I’ve never seen those in my tanks, only the jelly swimmers. Kinda nervous now...

I assumed all hydroids did it but I’m honestly not sure lol. The Patches of colonials I had seemed to spread on their own without the jellies that I could tell so it might not be them.

I’ve definitely had multiple types of hydroids though. Some solitary, some colonial. Some brown, some fluorescent green. The fluorescent green (Colonial) ones were for sure some of the ones that survived

I even had this bright orange branching one that had polyps coming off the sides of the tubes too. It looked pretty cool but died off early in the tanks life. I was told it was a hydroid.

Here’s a pic of it before it fully died back then. It’s hard to tell but each tube is branching off another tube on it. Image also wasn’t good enough to see the polyps coming out the sides unfortunately.