Tiny white spots on the glass are moving?!

Triggerhappy77 · May 8, 2017

Hi Everybody!!
These little dudes are all over the glass and in the water free floating. They move, they are white, and they're tiny. Any help on i.d. would be greatly appreciated.

saltyfilmfolks · May 8, 2017

Copepods.

azbigjohn · May 8, 2017

Probably pods, and those are a good thing. If you can get a closeup picture, we would know for sure.

Triggerhappy77 · May 9, 2017

My phone takes awful pics and that's all I got. Maybe this will help though. They look like little pear shaped bugs.

saltyfilmfolks · May 9, 2017

Copepods.

saltyfilmfolks · May 9, 2017

Cool right?

Triggerhappy77 · May 10, 2017

saltyfilmfolks said:
Cool right?

Crazy to see all the things that live together in this lil box.

Triggerhappy77 · May 14, 2017

Whoa! New development. Now I've had a huge algae bloom. I think diatom because it's all over the sand in the high flow areas around the live rock and on the rock itself. What should I do? I've got quite a cleanup crew amassed already. I feel like I need to get to the source of why it's growing at all. Help please.

saltyfilmfolks · May 15, 2017

Aww that ain't bad. Def double check your n/p and make sure there's no drastic changes and go from there. Not sure your light shced you cold shorten it. A bandaid but a pretty good one.

Triggerhappy77 · May 15, 2017

N/p? Nitrate phosphate?

saltyfilmfolks · May 15, 2017

Triggerhappy77 said:
N/p? Nitrate phosphate?

Yes sorry

Bume · May 15, 2017

Copepods. How old is your tank? I've gone through this on a newer tank, either way, make sure your water params are on point. When you have a ton of copepods, they're eating a lot of detritus and phyto and will strip the tank of it. Once there's not enough food they will die off creating more waste as they decompose. This will raise nitrates, phosphates and ammonia levels. Guess what nutrients algae likes? Nitrates and phosphates

The same cycle will happen with the algae, it will consume the excess nutrients until they are exhausted and it will then die off. You might go back and forth on this cycle but eventually your tank will achieve a balance. Wait it out, watch you parameters and perform normal water changes. Someone mentioned earlier that this is a good sign and they absolutely right! Copepods are part of a healthy tank!

Triggerhappy77 · May 16, 2017

I totally agree with you folks. Tank is only 2 months old and apparently still cycling in different phases. Just have to keep waiting to get my desired stability for adding livestock. Takes FOREVER!!!

Triggerhappy77 · May 16, 2017

saltyfilmfolks said:
Aww that ain't bad. Def double check your n/p and make sure there's no drastic changes and go from there. Not sure your light shced you cold shorten it. A bandaid but a pretty good one.

It's a 32 gallon led biocube and my lights are at full power for 10 hrs a day (down from 12) currently. Should I cut it down a lil more?

saltyfilmfolks · May 16, 2017

Triggerhappy77 said:
It's a 32 gallon led biocube and my lights are at full power for 10 hrs a day (down from 12) currently. Should I cut it down a lil more?

You can yes, it'll slow down the algae a bit yes. You may want to look at the specs on the lights and see what the max Par is at the bottom. Itll also give you an Idea of the type of coral you'll be getting later on.

Night Reefer · May 29, 2018

Same problem here phosphates 0 and nitrates at 5 tank about 3 months old. One good thing is I have a nice population of copepods.

Ewelina · Jul 27, 2018

Pods I have lots of them there good because they feed the fish.

Dsanchez1221 · Aug 21, 2020

Phew..... I woke up this morning to find the same thing in my nano. I've been in the hobby for quit a while, but I have never seen pods before I guess! I started to freak out when I went to feed the fish this morning and there are thousands of these guys all over the glass and back wall. Then when I looked closer and saw them moving I wanted to pee my PJ's

I just wonder why I have never seen them before. I used to have a couple larger tanks (90g and 120g) that I never saw pods in. My water chem is dang near perfect with only 10ppm of nitrite and no detectable phosphate.

As I'm writing this, I suddenly remember that 2 weeks ago I started dosing "Vibrant" weekly to control the beginning of a mild algae bloom. Does Vibrant contain copapods or pod egss as a means to eat algae? This would explain why i never seen them before since I've never used vibrant or similar before! I just always assumed it contained some other type of micro bacteria.

Anyways, they are pretty cool little organisms!

LeftyReefer · Aug 21, 2020

Same thing showed up in my tank the other night too. I was doing some tank maintenance and had turned off all my filters and powerheads. Within a few minutes, I noticed thousands of these tiny white bugs all over my glass. Came to R2R to post some pics and got the same ID, copepods.

My pumps have been backup and running for a few days and most of the pods on the glass have now disappeared again other than a few here and there. My clowns ignored them at first, but by the following day, were going to town on them. So much so that they hardly ate any pellets at feeding time.

Chibireefer · May 11, 2022

I have the same issue. Do u keep feeding livestock while u have this out break of copepods?
Should I do water change?
I run a filter and skimmer. Filter has a section for Purigen.