How do pods come into clean slate tank?

[happyhourhero]

Started cycling some spheres in a 20 gallon and started with Quikcycl and Microbacter start xlm. After cycle, I added 2 wheeler gobies and 10lb of bagged aragalive sand.

I have fed one cube of cyclops and every day they get a tiny chunk of reef frenzy.

I added 4 snails a week or so ago.

Pods crawling on the glass tonight. What’s the most likely entry? Gut of the fish? On the snails?

This happened a few years ago when I moved all fish into QT for the display and only had pvc.

Thoughts?

 

[RocketEngineer]

My first guess would be on the snails. Eggs in the fish gut may be another way they arrived. Either way, not a terrible thing.

 

[Mr_Knightley]

My guess is on the snail shells, the eggs would not likely survive the trip through a fishes' gut. You seem to think them to be bad, why is this? Pods are a perfectly normal part of the tank and couldn't really do any damage if they tried.

 

[Sarcazian]

The first corals I added brought in the pods. I read your original question wrong with how to get pods, but I will leave the info below for reference.

I do agree that the snails likely were the way, but as others have mentioned.. you normally want pods in your tank to help eat up stuff. My tank is almost 3 months old (yes new..) and I have not had to clean my glass once. There is a light green film in certain parts of the glass, but the pods keep it clean.

You probably need to be willing to use the plugs though and they lived through some pretty aggressive dipping.

- swish in two containers after scrubbing with a toothbrush
- H2O2 (15% in fresh water). Not sure if that counts as a fresh water + H2O2 dip or not..
- swish in two containers
- Dip in Seachem Reef dip (iodine)
- QT'ed for 4 days in a different tank.
- Seachem dip was used daily for 30 minutes each day.

 

[Biokabe]

Do you have any rock in your tank? Is any of it live rock? The pods could also have come in through the sand, through any coral plugs, on any snail shells... pod eggs are teeny-tiny and could come from anywhere, but either way, having pods in your tank is a good thing. They act as consumers of the smallest forms of algae, provide live food for your fish, and will sometimes feed your corals.

 

[happyhourhero]

Thanks all! I do not think them bad at all! I was just wondering how they get into a newly set up system with nothing except what I mentioned from an external source. I thought it was the cyclops but they are freshwater.

 

[happyhourhero]

This tank was solely set up to keep the bacteria up on the spheres until I set up my new tank.