Jestersix

Reef Bunnies?

S

sfsuphysics

Supporting Member
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Ok so this is something that's been perplexing me for a while. I seem to get little white "puff balls" that cling to sharp surfaces (rocks, corals, etc) and they look a lot like... dust bunnies (see where the title comes from)? Now sometimes I could swear they look like mysis shrimp bodies, and they very well may be, but I'm not convinced everything is that. They absolutely float in the water column if there's any sort of water movement but if there's not much flow (refugium) they do sink to the bottom and stay there. Now if they are detritus (fish aren't completely digesting when I feed mysis?) I have never seen detritus that looks like this. I had an "incident" and noticed the undersides of a lot of rocks are covered in these "Reef Bunnies" I'm trying to siphon them out as effectively as possible but being as my rocks are hardly smooth they do cling to the rocks fairly good (so going around with 1/4" drip tubing is not useful for siphoning them out).

Other options is maybe they are a form of dust? I mean the area with my tanks is hardly Class10k cleanroom or anything.

And here's the super weird thing... I don't see any of them in my 40G tank not 8 feet away, and I tend to feed the same food to both tanks, unless clownfish just have better digestive systems than tangs. Although looking at how much is in the tank (with what I pulled out) I don't think I feed that much mysis since the tank has been up.
 
One thing that comes to mind is if you feed mysis to any of your Corals or anemones a lot of them with digest it for a while then regurgitate it back up and it looks like mysis but just half digested. I’ve see my anemones and euphylia do it many many times. My acans digest it totally and just brown goo comes out. Just a thought.
 
The thing is I don't have any LPS or other corals that will eat mysis in the tank.

looking at the stuff floating around some more I'm also seeing a lot of hair like structures, considering the laziness that is my cats I think I can absolutely eliminate them, unless I have some woodland critters sneaking into my house and trying to fish, but I haven't seen any evidence of that (wet paws, water all over the place, missing fish)
 
Might be Mysis shrimp shells. I get those in detritus that settles out.

But if they cling, that implies something alive to me.
So I am betting on a small sponge or tunicate.
 
Ok, here's some photos taken with a macro image, not going to shrink the image just so you can see all the gory detail. These are ones that are clinging to anything that has a rough surface, so rocks are the big thing, easy enough to swipe with my hand to move some water and they float off, unfortunately most of them swirl around the tank and re cling to something before getting pulled into the overflow and into filter socks waiting to remove them.

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but they're literally like a ton of hairs, I know it looks like one solid form, but much like the dust bunny it's just a bunch of smaller things that are all clumping together. Plus sponges float? Because these do when they aren't grabbing onto a rock.
 
Yeah that’s not what I pictured. Do you carbon dose? I feel like it’s bacteria but I’m not sure. I know using nopox will give you that type of bacterial growth. Enough to even clog your filter socks.
 
Interesting, never seen anything like that.
There are some threads out there that have similar objects, but no obvious conclusions I could find.

Definitely seems biological to me.
Maybe some sort of sponge.
Does not really look like a bacterial mat. Too "puffy".
But totally a guess.
With it growing on top of your plating coral, it seems like it could be a problem also.

If a sponge, something to consider is going after the silicates in your tank.
Anion DO stage + GFO.
Of course, that assumes a silicate sponge, and it may not even be a sponge.
 
Ok it's not "growing" on top of the coral, that was simply me moving a rock in front of a power head to blow them off and they were blown all around the tank and basically anything with a rough surface that it contacted with it "hung on". I've since blew it off said corals.

Maybe I should pony up for one of those cheap USB microscopes on Amazon, up to 1000x magnification!!! (somehow I'm skeptical of that value)
 
sfsuphysics said:
(somehow I'm skeptical of that value)
Click to expand...

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230714852_A_mini-microscope_for_in_situ_monitoring_of_cells

And this is from 2012. I tried to find a story I heard on KQED in the last month or so where what was described was how a Cal State professor developed a method for performing field water testing by dyeing (as I recall) a specific contaminant or bacteria and observing the result using a <$100 USB or bluetooth-connected microscope with smart phone. The advantage: semi-technical personnel can spot-test water supplies in the field and photograph the results while easily including GPS coordinates, etc. Where there's evidence of potential contamination, the big guns get sent out as needed. If they're relying on cheap equipment, sounds perfect for reefers.

Haven't bought one yet but imagine one will sit near my magnifying glass at some point soon.
 
It's in a storage unit in TX at some point, but I have a decent optical microscope that I'm more than happy to let people peer through once it gets here.
My initial guess is sponge, although that's sort of my catch all for all small non bacterial creatures that aren't clearly something else.
 
I'm also leaning in the direction that this is something non-living. Combination of detritus and potential construction crap from the room having floating in, maybe even residue from the dryer somehow getting in there, it seriously has the texture of wet dryer lint when I grab stuff out. I think one of my office mates has a microscope that the biology department periodically "donates" (i.e. they leave them in the hall at the end of the semester with a "FREE" sign above them). But looking at those USB microscopes I may go in that direction after I get back from camping this weekend, at the very least I'll also be able to snap pictures and post my findings.
 
The reason I think bacterial and not a sponge is that you said just by moving the water close by with your hand they will come off and blow around the tank. Don’t sponges always grow attached to things. Cyano usually grows as a thick Matt but I have some wisps growing on the sand right now that are blowing in the current and super thin thread looking. The color is a dead give away but If it was not red I don’t think I would assume cyano. It definitely might not be bacteria but I don’t think you can rule it out.

Are you carbon dosing or adding nopox?
 
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