A Quick Question and IntroductionA Quick Question and Introd (1 Viewer)

[Trey]

Hello All,

I just want to take a minute to introduce myself and ask a quick question. My name is Trey, and I am a new reefer. I put up my tank (55gal) in hopes of keeping Seahorses. Some quick research made me question my initial decision, so I decided a salt water fish aquarium was the best way to start with Seahorses to come in the future

I had much success early with fish and absolutely fell in love with coral. I quickly took the step to coral and haven't regretted it for a second. At 3 months old I currently have the following know tank residents.

Fish
2 Green Chomis
1 Yellow Tang
1 Yellow Damsel
2 Blue Devil Damsels

Coral
1 Rock of Green Mushroom (also a single mushroom stuck to a piece of LR of his own choosing)
3 Colt Corals (frags of an original that didn't want to stay stuck to its rock)
1 Goniopora
1 Rock of Yellow Polyp and Brown Button combined

Other Known Inverts
Trochus Snails
Margarita Snails
Astea Snails
Flame Scallop
Brittle Star
Arrow Crab
Camel Shrimp (I haven't seen him in several weeks)
A vast population of Copepods

I currently have about 40 pounds of LR, and I hope to get that much or more to begin really building my reef. I plan to be at the swap on Saturday, and I am looking forward to finding some new soft coral to increase my population.

As for the question. I need some help identifying some tank inhabitants that have begun to take over the tank at night. If asked to describe them, I would say that they are snails of some sort. Originally, I thought they were small slugs, but a closer examination of one of them indicates that it actually has a shell of sorts. The reason I say that is that the shell is very small relative to the animal. I even questioned whether it was a hard shell, but it feels fairly hard but rather thin. They are nocturnal little critters, and they seem to get around pretty quick (faster than your average snail of similar size).

Anyone want to dare an answer? I suspect the answer is pretty trivial for many of you. I do know this, I saw the first one about 4 weeks ago, and I can easily count 20 of them this evening after the lights went out. If someone can identify them, can anyone assert whether they pose any problem? I have assumed up till now that they will control their own population based on the tanks algae load.

I look forward to meeting everyone that makes the frag swap. I don't have lots of money to spend, but what I have is burning a hole in my pocket.

Thanks for the answers,
Trey

 

[darrin]

stomopods.... stomatopods... sorry.. cant spell.. but i know what they are...

 

[AggieBrandon]

Yeah I had some of those guys when my tank was new but now I don't ever seem to see any. Maybe another "predator" in my tank has taken them out of the food chain.

Brandon

Oh yeah:

WELCOME TO MARSH!!

 

[Trey]

Thanks for the information. I hope they hang around if they're not a problem. My daughter has named them squishies (shades of Dora from Nemo). They are her animals in the tank. They also seem to be doing a great job on controlling algae.

Thanks Again,
Trey

 

[Guest]

They are Stomatella Snails and they are innocuous. They are a great algae eater and I have never heard of anyone having a problem with them. As AggieBrandon stated, though, I also used to have them all over the place, but after a few months they all disappeared.

Good luck with your new set up, and I hope to see you this weekend at the frag swap.

 

[pernelf]

Welcome to Marsh

The only advice I can give is if you plan on adding any more fish, get rid of the damsels now before adding more live rock. Those little buggers are hard to catch and will start to become the tank bullies.
See on Saturday

 

[Trey]

Thanks for the feedback Leslie.

I definately don't plan on adding more fish, but I am in love with my Damsels. I started with five Damsels on day one (literally), and I still have four of them. I had to get rid of my Domino Damsel fairly early due to his abusiveness. I currently feed the Damsels, and a False Percula I left off of the list earlier, from a net. I started this while trying to capture the Domino. It took several weeks to train them to eat from a net, but they are quite trusting now. I am definately torn about what to do with the Damsels. I am considering moving several to my quarantine tank (a 10 gallon), but I haven't committed to anything yet. Even with this heavy fish load my nitrate runs <10 ppm while doing 20% water changes every three weeks.

I expect to reduce the Damsel population over time, but I just have to work up to it. How is it that we become so attached to these little critters?

Thanks,
Trey