Thing on inside of glass in saltwater aquarium?
There was this thing sliding on the inside of the aquarium on the glass it was oval shaped and had kind of a scissor tail. It was pretty small like no bigger than the flat side of a pencil eraser. Is it bad? And does anyone know what it is?
LighteningBolt
on February 8th, 2012
With out a picture it is hard to tell, but it sounds like copepods. These are good for your tank. If you have copepods it means that your tank is cycling properly and that is great! There are fish that will feed off these guys like gobies, blennys or even a sea horse. If this is what they are… just be careful on choosing its predator. Some gobies are not ‘cleaner crew’ safe. They will pick at your hermit crabs and snails. Some seahorses will pick at your coral. So it just depends on your tank. If you go to your local fish store and look closer to the sand on the glass you will almost always see copepods. If you go on Yahoo search and look up copepod then click on ‘Images’ you will get a bunch of pictures. I have these in my tank… and I freaked the first time I saw them. Yahoo Images are my best friend now in identifying all the lil pests in the tank, lol.
There are A LOT more ‘pests’ in salt tanks than other tanks that almost always come in on your live rock or corals. The good news is that there is also almost always something that will eat the pest.
I really hope this helped!! Good luck and enjoy your tank!
Dex
on February 8th, 2012
Maybe it’s a type of snail. Try doing a search of Y! images and see if you can find a picture of a snail that looks like your little alien.
CatNap
on February 8th, 2012
It’s hard to say what this might be from the description. What was the color? Was it flat and look like these: http://www.cerianthus.nl/leesvoer/alg/pl... ? These are saltwater planaria, and they can be a bit of a problem when they multiply and cover your glass. you can control them by limiting their food supply (extra food in the tank).
You might have seen one of the types of shrimp that come in on live rock: gammarid shrimp: http://www.reefs.org/hhfaq/bugs/photoalb... mysis shrimp: http://www.calacademy.org/research/izg/S...
These last two are harmless and will multiply in the tank to become “extra” snacks for your fish.
Highway
on February 8th, 2012
Was it white? Could be planaria.
Highway
on February 8th, 2012
they are probably copepods
FuzzyFerret
on February 8th, 2012
try wetwebmedia.com, but be warned it may take a few hours to ID it