Snowflakes on the glass

[Tadashi]

Alright after searching RC and Internet (not sure if I reached the end) :p, I have not been able to figure out what these snowflakes on my glass are. They look like starfish with 3 - 8 legs. The body is circular about .5 mm and the legs are skinny about 1 mm. As soon as I wipe them off the glass they are back in about 30 min. I do not remember having these before in my 180.

[InsaneClownFish]

Hydroids. Harmless.

[reeflover62]

They maybe Aiptasia.

[thegrun]

Sounds like Asterina Starfish, they are harmless although they can produce numbers that can be unsightly. http://www.chucksaddiction.com/hitchstars.html

[Tadashi]

I do have 3 of the Asterina although IPSF called them comet starfish. They are about the size of a dime. However, these snowflakes look like really tiny serpent stars if anything. Although their arms look a little fuzzy but hard to tell without magnification. They are also all white. I have a bunch of mini-stars from IPSF also which look like mini-serpent stars. Could this be their spawn?

[Aquabucket]

.5 mm - 1mm ~ most likely the medusa stage of a hydroid. They can settle on your rockwork and become colonial.

[ludnix]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15708406#post15708406 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Aquabucket
.5 mm - 1mm ~ most likely the medusa stage of a hydroid. They can settle on your rockwork and become colonial.

Yep, it's a little confusing when people just say "Hydroid jellies", but when hydroids reproduce a little jellyfish like medusa head drifts off to start a new colony, these heads sometimes end up on the glass. They often look like a white center with some smaller white beads on strings attached to the center.

Mini-serpent stars have pretty good definition whereas these hydroids are pretty transparent and so small they are hard to see.

[CLINTOS]

tuff to tell without a pic but just guessing I would say baby micro serpent star the ones I have look just like a snow flake when they are babies

[sra127]

gonna say hydroids on this one.....if this is what u r talking about
<img src="http://i644.photobucket.com/albums/uu165/sra127/hydroid.jpg">

[Beaun]

that is a tiny picture, but it looks like hydroids from what I can tell.

[1DeR9_3Hy]

Hydroids, i asked this about a year ago with the same description.

[Tadashi]

Yep those are it. My camera would not get as nice picture.

[tazmanian_cowboy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15711137#post15711137 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by sra127
gonna say hydroids on this one.....if this is what u r talking about
<img src="http://i644.photobucket.com/albums/uu165/sra127/hydroid.jpg">

WOW what a coincidence, I just found out that I had hydroids. I knew they couldn't be good, but had no ID until I stumbled upon it today. Now researching I see this picture and I saw (for the first time) 2 of these white things in my tank just a few hours earlier. Thanks for the knowledge and pic sra127.

Taz