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gettareef

Help Identifying Some of the Life in the Refugium of my 75 Gallon

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3 Comments
by
gettareef
, 04-15-2013 at 12:12 AM (9836 Views)
Hello All! ,
I have a few things I would like help identifying in my aquarium. They are mainly found in my refugium.

So I captured these videos the other day. The first one is from my refugium which contains live rock, chaeto, and 1” miracle mud as substrate. It is filled with life, and some type of snail and possibly mysis shrimp(?) breeding has been happening. The first video is a close-up of one of the rocks in the refugium. If you look closely you can see little white baby somethings swarming all over the side of the rock. In fact there are swarms of them everywhere. They are all over my refugium AND main display (just a little harder to find in my main display), and there are thousands and thousands of them. A friend of mine (NYSteelo from facebook) told me he believed they were baby mysis shrimp. Is this correct? Also, it has been about a year since I put the miracle mud in, and I need to change it out. I need to replace 50% of the substrate in my refugium. I plan on doing this with a net, and just swapping it out. Will doing this hurt the life (and baby mysis shrimp or whatever they are) in my refugium?



The second video is from my main display and is from a red light after light out. It is hard to make out what is in the video, but clearly you can see life. These, I believe, are the same mysis shrimp only much bigger. If you can’t see it on the video, they have a circular body with what looks like tails on them. If these are mysis shrimp, or whatever, what does this mean for my system? Is there anything in particular I can do to help them (although they seem to be getting along quite nicely without my help).



The third video is of a snail, bred in my refugium. I have nearly 50 of them now. They do not appear to have shells. In the video, the snail is rolling around the miracle mud, seeming to love it. In the background you can again see the baby mysis. Does anyone know what type of snails these are? Once they grow bigger, should I throw in some shells for them to take to or will they grow shells themselves?



Thank you guys for any help you can give. It is much appreciated. I love this hobby! ~ Dustin

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Updated 04-15-2013 at 12:56 AM by gettareef

Categories
‎ Tank Entry , ‎ Photography/Video , ‎ Questions - Need some input

Comments

  1. melev's Avatar
    Dustin,

    In the first video, the very first creatures we see is an Amphipod. You'll easily spot those because of their size. The tiny bugs running around are mysids. Mysis are shrimp shaped, mysids are runners.
    http://melevsreef.com/critters/amphipod
    http://melevsreef.com/critters/mysis-shrimp (I call them mysis on this page, but I'm almost positive they are mysids)

    In the second video, it never focused but it looked like something near the end of the video was eating those moving targets.

    In the third video, that's a stomatella that looked like it couldn't get traction to move from that spot. Those are great grazers, and will eat algae in your tank.
    http://melevsreef.com/critters/stomatella
    Updated 04-20-2014 at 03:13 PM by melev
  2. gettareef's Avatar
    Thank you Marc for the fast response and great info! After comparing them to the links you provided, those are definitely Amphipods and a Stomatella (I never heard of this one before). Looking at my rock in my main display I also identified tons of Copepods. You are probably correct about the swarms being Mysids, but I cannot confirm this due to them being SO small and looking like they are swimming in swarms rather than running on the substrate/rock. In any case, these are all great signs of a well established and healthy aquarium. I started my tank with all dry rock, getting a pod culture from reefcleaners.com. I love that place and definitely suggest their $10 pod package. The second video is not the best quality and it was real difficult to get a clear video or picture of those creatures.
    Regarding my miracle mud question, do you believe my plan to swap out 50% of the miracle mud in the refugium would not negatively affect my system or the life in their (at least not wipe it out)?

    Again, Thank you for your expert advise and information. Much appreciated! I plan to post a new blog very soon about a little convention I went to recently hosted by my local reef club Greater Iowa Reef Society (GIRS) and LiveAquaria in Des Moines. Happy reefing! ~Dustin
  3. melev's Avatar
    The premise of changing out sections of miracle mud is by design, so it should be fine. You'll end up sucking out some of those bugs in the process, but I don't see how you could avoid that. You can try to scoop it out, siphon it out, or shop-vac it out... but when you add the new stuff your tank will undoubtedly get muddy in the process for a day.

    We look forward to your future blog entries, and that one sounds like a great topic indeed.