What do baby snails look like?

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mwb1978

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Oct 23, 2006
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Tucson, AZ
I was doing some tank maintenance today and when I went behind the tank I noticed all these little things hanging to the glass inside the overflow. At first I thought they were just chunks of algae, but then I noticed that they sort of have antennae and they are all shaped the same. Am I seeing things or are these some sort of little critters? If I had to guess, I'd say that they look like baby snails without a shell. I often have a wild imagination. The tank has several types of snails in it. Nothing out of the ordinary though, as far as I know. Thanks for the help.

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Fishieness

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Jan 14, 2006
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are the sessle? My first guess would be a pineapple sponge.
 

mwb1978

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Oct 23, 2006
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Tucson, AZ
These are the best pics I can get with my camera. There isn't a lot of room between the wall and the tank, so the camera has trouble focusing on the critters from that close up. There are at least a hundred or so of these things in the overflow. I don't see more than 1 or 2 in the main tank which are stuck to the glass way in the back behind the rock work. They range in size from about 3 or 4mm to nearly a half an inch or maybe a bit over. The ones in the pics are the larger ones. You guys mentioned that they could be sponges, but I don't have any corals in the tank. But, there may have been stuff on the live rock. Most of the rock I got as dry base rock. But, about 45 Lbs of it were actual live rock from Liveaquaria.com.

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Ace25

www.centralcoastreefclub. com
Oct 3, 2005
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Still looks like normal Pineapple sponges from what I can tell.. they come on live rock and spread. They are good to have.. good filter feeders. Those were some of the first things I noticed in my tank as well when I started getting into Reef.. but that was also when I started using real Live rock.. before then I just used lava rock in my FO tanks (because thats what the LFS sold me and I didn't know any better).

If they are stuck to the glass and don't move around.. that is my guess. If you look at them real close they look like tiny little white pineapples.
 

mwb1978

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Oct 23, 2006
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Tucson, AZ
I guess they sorta look like pineapples. The pics I took were over 2 days. It doesn't look like they have moved at all.

How big do they get, what eats them, and will they over-run the overfill or even the tank?

This is the neatest part of having a marine tank. There is so much more life in one than a freshwater tank. I'm glad I finally made the decision and got a huge SW tank.

On a different note, I finally got a few more critters for the tank. I got a Blue Hippo tank, a couple of green chromis, 2 peppermint shrimp and a yellow headed goby yesterday from the LFS. Most everybody is in quarantine now. I already lost a chromis. Either another chromis attacked him or he had a run in with the powerhead because he had a chunk missing from his left side. I found him swimming erratically and then he died an hour later.

Any suggestions on how to make sure the tang doesn't have ich before he gets out of quarantine? I've heard that they are ich magnets and I want to kep ich out of my main tank.
 

Fishieness

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Jan 14, 2006
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Yeah. They are pineapple spounges. They will most likely locate in areas of lower light such as the back wall and in the overflows. They won't overrun your tank either.
For the tank, treat the fish in QT with hyposalinity
 

Ace25

www.centralcoastreefclub. com
Oct 3, 2005
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Hypo is one method. Another one is to treat the QT tank with Copper to help with Ich if you want. Also soak seaweed and other food in Garlic Guard to help their immune system.

IMO there is nothing you can really do to prevent Hippo tangs from getting ich. I know people always say if you QT for 6+ weeks and don't notice any ich you will be ok and you won't introduce ich to your display tank. Personally, I have never seen that really work as planned. It sounds good in theory, but Hippo Tangs and Powder Blue Tangs seem to get ich randomly. At the LFS I work at we put a Powder Blue tang in QT for 8 weeks in copper, then put him in the 400G Display tank, within 2 days it had ich spots on it with no other fish in the tank that was setup for 3 months cycling with 800lbs of live rock. To this day (over a year later) I see Ich on it about once a week, only 3-4 spots at a time, and usually shows late in the day before lights out, but it is definately there. Doesn't seem to hurt the fish at all though (doesn't scratch or act erratically) and the next morning the spots are gone. We have just learned to live with it and accept it is just "one of those things" with that fish. Now there are 4 tangs in the 400G along with about 5 other fish and no other fish has ever shown any signs of ich other than the Powder Blue.
 
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