What is this on my glass?

fowler279 · Sep 8, 2020

Tried to take the best pic i could with my iphone. Not great but all i got right now. Anyone know what is all over the glass? Looks to be eating the brown algea and at first thought they might be pods but after more research dont think they are as i have not introduced any pods into the tank and nothing new has been added to the tank in 2+ weeks.

I havent seen these critters before today. I did do a water change yesterday but ive done them several times already and these havent shown up after. Only other thing i did was add some Microbacter7 but have done that after each water change. I did move my Toadstool leather but other than that its all i changed. Any ideas? Thanks

DanInMichigan · Sep 9, 2020

baby snails?

vetteguy53081 · Sep 9, 2020

Cant get a clear look but may be baby stomella snails or pods

stanleo · Sep 9, 2020

I would say they are copepods. You don't have to purposely introduce them to get them. They often hitchhike on new coral, live rock and so on.

fowler279 · Sep 9, 2020

They are eating and concentrated on the algae thats on the glass so that makes total sense.

stanleo said:
I would say they are copepods. You don't have to purposely introduce them to get them. They often hitchhike on new coral, live rock and so on.

Thats what i thought at first but havent added anything new to the tank in over 3 weeks. Woulda thought i would have seen them before now. But maybe they have always been there and the population just exploded recently?

stanleo · Sep 9, 2020

fowler279 said:
They are eating and concentrated on the algae thats on the glass so that makes total sense.

Thats what i thought at first but havent added anything new to the tank in over 3 weeks. Woulda thought i would have seen them before now. But maybe they have always been there and the population just exploded recently?

That's possible. My tank was up and running for a couple months before I starting noticing them. If you have a magnifying glass, look at them through that. Should be able to see to antenae looking appendages coming out of the head and the females will have noticable eggs attached to the posterior.