ICH on glass, LR, snails, hermits, EVERYTHING!!!! HELP!

[DJPB]

Randy, you helped me through a nitrite problem I had in my QT, THANK YOU !!!! I now have something very strange happening in my 55g. I posted it in the new to hobby forum, but i'd like your input as well. Thanks for any advise you may be able to give me...
-Paul

I know that sounds crazy, but hear me out. I had ich in my 55g 2 months ago. I promptly moved all fish to QT for 6 weeks, just started re-introducing them to the 55g 2 weeks ago. I still have a yellow tang and a sargassum trigger in QT, gonna put them in the 55g last. This past Thursday I bought a Manderin and a purple firefish from a LFS and put them directly into the 55, by-passing the QT (LFS had them in .2ppm copper concentrated water). Friday morning the Manderin appeared to be covered with ich and the purple firefish had 3 spots. The spots on the Manderin would fall off, float freely, and re-attach. Today it looks like they are floating everywhere in the tank, and the back glass seems to be COVERED with it (ich on glass? that's impossible right, glass can't host a parasite). The same stuff is on the LR, covering it in some places. It's on everything, even snails, hermits, and a sea star. No fish are breathing funny, none are scraping, none are showing any symptoms of any disease. WHAT THE ****! This is crazy, I really need some help here. Let me give you some background info.

55g
440 watt VHO 2 URI aquasun, 2 URI super actinic (2 week old bulbs) on 9 hours a day
Eco System 40 with Rio 600 (clean sponge weekly) and a purigan bag in the filter also
70 lbs LR (Fiji and MI)
4" DSB
15 watt UV - minijet 404
3 MJ 900's, 1 MJ 1200
nitrite - 0
nitrate - 20
amoninia - 0
pH - 8.4
salinity - 1.023
temp - 79

20mL B-ionic daily dose

1 purple firefish, 2 firefish, 1 Ward's goby, 1 Manderin, 1 Hawaiian cleaner wrasse, 1 CBS, 1 skunk cleaner shrimp, 1 fighting conch, 12 turbo grazers, 18 blue legged hermits, 3 red legged hermits, 1 long spined urchin, 1 blue sea star, 1 feather duster, 3 xenia frags, rose anemone, and a torch coral.

Over the past 2 weeks or so I have been getting hit with algae. It is green and grows on glass. I can scrape it off and 24 hours later it's back. I'm buying a phosphate test kit tomorrow. I do a 5 gallon water change twice per month (per Eco-System manual). Any ideas/advise/help is so appreciated. If nothing else have you ever heard of anything similar?

Thanks, Paul

[asmujica]

It seams as if someone is playing in the southdown. Shame on him :D

[Boomer]

First, you do not have ick, If ick was on the galss and rocks you would ***never*** see it. You have one of the 4 tihings going on

1. Ca is leaving solution and some is getting stuck to things

2. Those white things are air bubbles

3. Those are particles from somebody playing in the sand as already noted.

4. You have a very large copepod explosion ( a tiny shrimp like animal)

And I highly suspect # 4, as you may have miss ID them as Ick, as they look like tiny white spots, would brush off and they move, swim/crawl :D And I am 99.99 % sure that's what they are.


Copepods (http://images.google.com/images?q=copepod&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&sa=N&tab=wi)

[DJPB]

A pod explosion, very interesting. There must be thousands of them. Anyone need some? lol. I recently cleaned the powerheads; maybe when I put them back in one of them kicked up sand. I'm just glad it's not ich, that was a nightmare I never want to have again. Thanks for the info, I'll keep ya posted. Gonna post some pics 2morrow.

[bluereefs]

A pod explosion, very interesting

I have been getting hit with algae. It is green and grows on glass
Hair algae are best place for pods.Is quite interesting how many people hate and remove all hair algae spots(where is the most populations of benefical plancton)but keep deep sand bed where are located not so important small animals(mostly worms).
Just my opinion.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Hair algae are best place for pods.Is quite interesting how many people hate and remove all hair algae spots(where is the most populations of benefical plancton)but keep deep sand bed where are located not so important small animals(mostly worms).

:thumbsup:

Paul:

Hopefully the answer is one of these other explanations, which would not be so bad.:)

[Boomer]

I forgot to add that explosions like these are not really a good thing, although they won't hurt anyting. It is a sign/indication that there is to much organics in the water column. Like anything else in nature, as the food source grows so does the population, until something puts a hold on that food supply, in which case the population then drops.

[bluereefs]

I agree and disagree Boomer:) ,in my expirience that depends about tipe of pods.If they are gammarus then I dont think that is organic related,I have gammarus in all places where are the hair algae grows.On the other hand if that pods look like big T leter(or is cap right word:confused: ),then they are related with organic or something die and decompose in the water,I have them always when I cure live rock.

[Boomer]

We are taklin' explosions here, not a general population. Gammarus are rather large compare to Copepods, they are Amphipods. Copepods, those in question, are harpacticoids and planktonic feeders and not crawling feeders. Gammarids can feed directly, right off your algae. An over population of anything, to a degree, is an indication there is to much food (organics) in the system, be it the bottom or water column, especially if that population remains for any lenth of time. You can say the same for bristle worms or even flat worms. If the food was not there they would not be there:D

[Boomer]

are harpacticoids and planktonic feeders and not crawling feeders

I don't believe I said that. :mad: They are mostly benthic and the most major part of the Meiofauna, although often cause planktonic explosions with heavy loaded systems. They are still suspension feeders that fed off of plankton or orgnaic matter, thus are not really crawling feeders as are amphipods

[bluereefs]

Yes I saw that,but you mentioned word explosion and I decide to not push you too much:cool: ,