Hi,

About a month into my new set up I noticed hundreds of what I believe to be amphipods running around on my LR, glass and substrate.

I do not see them anymore, is this normal due to the lack of green/Hair algae which has now been replace by purple algae and they are now munching away inside the SSB or is it a sign my live SSB is not functioning correctly.

What do you have for livestock in your tank?

If they were running around on the glass chances are they were copepods and/or isopods. They always boom population wise after a cycle when there are lots of food to be had.

They will kind of come and go based on the available food and predatation. Nothing wrong with your sandbed with this matter. If you want to see bigger populations of them a fuge would be sweet.

For future reference.....

Copepod
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o292/critters_album/copepodtoday.jpg

Isopod (munnid)
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o292/critters_album/isopodnew.jpg

Amphipod (gammarid)
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o292/critters_album/Gammarid.jpg

My tank is 60 gal, I have about 20 kilos of live rock, 4 x 3 spotted damsels, 1 x gobby, small clean up crew (turbo snails and hermit crabs) a feather duster and quite a few small button Polyps.

From the photos they looked more like Amphipods and Isopods, Are they beneficial in larger quantities.

I gues my gobby took a likening to them.

Thanks for the image references (this is why I love TR)

Did you treat the hair algae or let it takes its course?

I have heard of people treating there HA and loosing some of there pod stock. Not sure if this is the case or not just thought i would bring it up.

Did you treat the hair algae or let it takes its course?

I have heard of people treating there HA and loosing some of there pod stock. Not sure if this is the case or not just thought i would bring it up.

No I let the algae take its natural course, this was the stage I introduced my clean up crew.

From the photos they looked more like Amphipods and Isopods, Are they beneficial in larger quantities.

I guess my goby took a likening to them.

yes, they are beneficial, and some gobies have been known to feed on them IIRC

yes, they are beneficial, and some gobies have been known to feed on them IIRC

Thanks rob, is it common for them to go missing or not pop out after a period of time, I cant see them in my LFS tanks.


Or should I not worry, I seem to be panicking about everything at the mo, I've just started a new thread about my button polyps (seem to be dying/dead)

not really.. but keep in mind that many LFS have to treat there systems with many things, and also run different types of filtration. this may cause problems for many of the pods so you might not see them,

as for your tank, the population will increase and decrease based on predation and available food sources

Thanks all, i will not worry about them to much, having said that i intend on pulling out my old microscope (should be interesting)