Dream Tank

netviper · July 27, 2012

Tank has small white "ants" crawling all over the wall with diatoms blooming on the tank wall! what should i do? those white 'ants' looks disgusting! Are they good or bad? No pictures as it is too small to be captured on camera.

Those are copepods. They are good critters. As for diatoms, since u r cycling ya tank, u can switch off ya tank lights. It helps to minimize their growth.

BELL · July 27, 2012

Hey netviper, how will they go away??

Harlequinmania · July 27, 2012

The pods is food for your corals, fishes. If you intent to keep fishes like mandarin , pods is their key food source. Many reefer spend money buying this for their tank so I suggest you should keep it too

MadScientist · July 27, 2012

The pods is food for your corals, fishes. If you intent to keep fishes like mandarin , pods is their key food source. Many reefer spend money buying this for their tank so I suggest you should keep it too

I do not recommend keeping mandarin fish for the purpose of copepods unless you have a full blown refrigum. It's akin to using fish for cycling.

Once the copepods are gone, mandarin fish often starve.

Since they are harmless, you can leave them alone. Once you start putting in your lifestocks, they will diminish in numbers till they disappear. After that, you would be wishing for them to return.