can anyone ID these and tell me if they are good or bad

[brianfleming]

Hi, ihave these strange things growing in my sump after the bioballs. As you can see from the pics the 2 round things stuck to the glass what are these and are they good or bad? Also in between these there is a funny looking jelly blubba thing that look like it has a tadpole in it? Whats that and is it good or bad. By the way i have high nitrate problems could these critters be the cause at all? Thanks

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/143029mini-mini-mini-Picture_002.jpg

Yay worked out pictures:mixed:

[brianfleming]

sorry no pic cant work it out how can you make a pic less than 50K?

[AquaReeferMan]

Here this will help you out.
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e349/aquareeferman/image.jpg

[AquaReeferMan]

They look like some pineapple sponges. As for your nitrate problem that could be due to over feeding, not doing enough water changes, those bio-balls, any filter sponges, collection of detritus, and no skimming.

[brianfleming]

So could it be bio balls? I thought bio balls were good. They have funny looking white sponges growing all over them and also attatched to the glass. i do have a fair bit of brown crap that i think is detrius sitting after the bio balls should i siphon all of this outta my sump to improve nitrates?

[drummereef]

Bio balls are plagued with problems. Can you describe your systems to us? Substrate, live rock, filtration, etc... Any other pics you can post will help.

[brianfleming]

Ok its a 60 gallon tank with sump. Has 6 fish 2 cleaner shrimp 4 turbo snails, live rock, and about 10 or so corals. The substrate is quite deep in tank and it was just bought from LFS not live or anything just argonite i think its called. I have heard of peple not using bio balls but i dont understand why they are so popular. All my other tank parameters are fine its just the nitrate iam battling. By the way i have no refugium and iam skimming using a queen turbo ts2000 skimmer which seems to do an ok job.

[awestruck]

If your sand is "new" it probably hasn't had time to start the filtering process. The bioballs work very well regarding breaking down ammonia to nitrites. However, bioballs hold on to the nitrates because they are not biological filtration. If you rinse the bioballs on a regular basis you should be able to eliminate your nitrate problem (assuming it's coming from the bioballs nitrate factory).

[brianfleming]

When you say rinse, should i do this under saltwater or freshwater and do i scrub or wash or just rinse?