Name the detritivore...

[JennM]

Hi all,

A funny thing happened this morning....

I was eyeballing the bottom of my seahorse tank (37 rr oceanic) for premature H. reidi born sometime in the night. On the sand, I noticed a swarm of "something" devouring a leftover piece of mysis, very much like a colony of ants would gather around a piece of food, to break it up and return it to their nest. Now, I presume they were eating it on the spot, but I've never noticed this particular "bug" before. They were small, about the size of the tip of a pin, and sort of a tan/orange color. They were round shaped, not worm-like or amphipod like...I've got lots of worms and 'pods in this tank and also have a refugium.

This was observed immediately after I turned the light on, before the timer kicked in, because I was expecting to find the babies (my boy always gives birth 2 days early

), so I'm wondering if these aren't nocturnal creatures that I just happened to spy because I changed the sunrise time?

Any guesses? Sorry they are too tiny to photograph, I'm wondering if they are some kind of copepod...

Experiences? Ideas?

Jenn

 

[danmhippo]

Saltwater ants?? cool!

In my refugium there are so many different kind of copepods and amphipods, I can't even tell how many different ones are out there. Sounds interesting though, I have seen swarm of copepods fighting over some flakes, but the visible sizes are usually much larger than a pinhead. Could have them be larval stage of some crustaceans?

 

[Shoots]

I have them everywhere also and they do look like snall brown ants, running all over the rock and sand. I do believe they are adults since I have seen them for some time and they don't appear to have grown any.

^^^

 

[2poor2reef]

They sound like copepods to me. Many copepods are about that size and feed at night. I only see mine when the actinics first come on and then they quickly disappear.

 

[JennM]

Woohoo I was hoping they were copepods.

I'll leave a little "bait" for them in tonight and harvest a few tomorrow morning. I'm trying to start a culture of them to feed my baby seahorses....much better for them than brine...so I'll do that instead of ordering an expensive culture online!

Jenn