So I have started seeing these attaching to the glass in my aquarium:
Here is a picture from farther away that gives a better idea of how they are clustered:
I am assuming they are eggs of some sort, but I am not sure what from. Being that they are attached to the glass, I am assuming these are maybe from my nerite snails? I don’t think it is from my Hawaiin Cowry since they actually lay them in ‘piles’ and sit on them to hatch, from what other websites have said about them. What do you all think?
I have read some stuff online that says it could be aiptasia or the start of featherdusters… I will be taking pictures daily, of the ones on the side glass, with my macro lense. Should be pretty cool if that is what they are. If they are aiptasia, I may have a problem, cause i bet there are 40 of these things on my glass…
Ok and after even more reading, I have almost certainly ruled out featherdursters, since they are spiral like when viewed on the glass. Unless this is a larval stage of a featherduster, or something like that and it just hasn’t started to spiral out yet… Some sites have said that it may be snail eggs. I am going to research Nerite Snails and see what their eggs look like…
Mystery solved… after further reading, it seems that these are in fact nerite snails. I saw a picture on 3reef.com of what looks like the same exact thing, only it is on a rock and mine is on glass. So I guess I can turn the Barry White music off now…
[quote=“ihuntinde, post:6, topic:1704”]
Mystery solved… after further reading, it seems that these are in fact nerite snails. I saw a picture on 3reef.com of what looks like the same exact thing, only it is on a rock and mine is on glass. So I guess I can turn the Barry White music off now…[/quote]
yup i got a bunch of nerite snails, and those are definately their eggs. if you dont want em, a plastic scraper will take em out. most of them usually dont get a chance to grow up in a reef anyways.
well, if you think they are nerite snails, leave em be and grow up to clean the tank. but if they dont move and glue to th glass and stay put, then they are some kinda duster worm. i got them everywhere, dark spaces in the sump to tank glass. they are ok. grow some multi colored sponges too to help clean the water.
I’m 95% sure they are not Spirorbis spp.(the little feather dusters we commonly see) as they are missing the spiral shape as matchu627 said. I thought their was a chance the first image was blurred, but the second image is clear enough to see multiple specimens with out this shape.
The first image is a picture of one single “egg” using a 100mm macro lens on my Canon DSLR. So it is a super close up shot. Its got a little bit of blur to it, because i shot it free handed, but there is positively no spiral at all when looking at them with the naked eye. Unless this is the beginning stage of a featherduster before it gets that swirl look to it.
[quote=“Gordonious, post:10, topic:1704”]
I’m 95% sure they are not Spirorbis spp.(the little feather dusters we commonly see) as they are missing the spiral shape as matchu627 said. I thought their was a chance the first image was blurred, but the second image is clear enough to see multiple specimens with out this shape. [/quote]
I also thought they were spirorbis except in the first picture that does look like coraline
I have not read anywhere that corraline of any type starts as a white dot. Most people have been saying that even the smallest amount of coralline that they have seen has been pinkish purple in color. Unless I guess if it’s been bleached out or something at the start? This dot when viewed up close looks almost like it has something inside of it, like a yolk or something…
I have been checking it daily and if it even starts to look like its spiraling, I will take a picture… I’m hoping these pictures, if they are kept on the board, will help any new aquarist, like myself, that have questions about what they are seeing in their tank.
Coraline does form initially as a white dot, the center will be slightly darker then the rim, as it gorws the center will begin to color-up and the rim will remain white. it is not uncommon to find new coraline growing on the glass in a new tank, or in an old one for that matter.
Cool, that is good to know. Cause after the inital response that it looked like coralline, I started looking around for pictures, but I did not find anything. This will be interesting to see what it turns out to be.
This is also one of the reasons I was so excited to start a SW tank. The chance that something could grow out of nowhere and be any number of things… the suspense!
i bet some sort of eggs… all of the spots look exactly the same, which any type of algae (be it coraline or other) wouldnt start out so symmetrical in EVERY spot it starts huh?
My little brother took a look at it yesterday and said initially his thought was coralline algae, but when he took a much closer look at it, he said his coralline algae that started as a white dot didn’t look like this does. He guessed eggs of some sort. I have brushed most of them off with a magfloat, from the back wall. I was tired of seeing the brown algae still sitting on the wall, so I used the mag to get rid of it, and it cleaned off most of the eggs. I am going to leave a few that are close to one of my koralia’s. Just for S’s and G’s.
Most of the eggs that I have from my Cerith snails have dissappeared. I even put a couple of snails down in my fuge (one cerith and one nerite) and the cerith laid eggs down there within a week… pretty crazy… horny little buggers…
