Neptune Aquatics

Very small pod, help ID

zepplock

zepplock

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I looked at my tank with a flashlight yesterday and after seeing normal large and smaller pods found tiny ones...

More like bugs than normal pods, size 1/2 mm to 1 mm, look like mini-armadillos in shape and have 2 very small antennas in the front.
Very small size but looked like that have a shell or a pretty hard-looking body.
They were all over the corals too, especially zoa and montis. Lots on the sand and rocks.

When bright light touches them - they can detach from glass and either swim away or get moved away by the water movement.

Is that a common bug or something bad?
 
I don't think so, even though I have a lot of amphipods too.
I looked through pics of isopods, copepods and amphipods and could not match it.
The bugs are much smaller and have no visible legs, not c-shaped. They have unibody, no evidence of body segments.

p.s. Assuming I had jellyfish in my tank for a long time, I'm not surprised this could be something weird.
 
Then your armadillo reference makes no sense since they have a segmented shell *AND* legs ;)

I highly doubt you had "jellyfish" either.. most likely just a medusa form of something else, that is fairly common.

No telling with out a pic, good luck
 
p.s. good article here: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/podidfaqs.htm

Looks like Ostracods
The closest pic i can get is this:
j20976.jpg
 
Thanks for comments Gresh. I meant that they have armadillo-like shape. Kind of like elongated egg shape.

I know hard to describe. one more pic that is closer:
ostracod-C.JPG
 
Looks like you find the id for yourself. There are about 6,000 species with a variety of feeding strategies - detritivores, algae-eaters, micro-grazers, plankton feeders, filter feeders, scavengers, predators. A few - few enough that you don't have to worry about it - are parasitic on other inverts.
 
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