Do you remove little critters

I was cleaning my phosban and carbon reactors today and i don't why rincing it in hot water and scrubbing it with my little green pad and said ti self, am i crazy these little buggers probably helps with the cleaning and polishing of my water so why am i removing them DAH !!! So anybody else doing this or think they have any use at all. These little white nodual we see everywhere, i don't know what they are , maybe somebody more knowlegable can tell us.

 

how big are they exactly? and maybe a picture would help if it isnt too late. I wanna say possibly copepods but then again I think those would be way to hard to see while you are cleaning your equipment so I'm almost ruling those out

 

Are they hard and have to be scraped off? If so, probably spirorbid polychaetes. They are harmless.

 

I'm guessing that if a green pad is being used that they are not the easiest to remove lol

 

I clean them off my equipment either with scrubbing or dissolving with vinegar. If they are on your equipment they are probably also elsewhere in the tank so if you lose a few to clean your equipment it's no big deal IMO.

 

They are benthic critter thats for sure, they are only in the sump where there's no lights. Kina like creamy white little lumps stuck to everything, glass mostly looks like a root.

 

spirorbid polychaetes - Google Images

 

Actually , no. i do have some of those but the ones i'm talking about are different. They are only seen in dark places, the spirorbid are sometime like mine are in my DT . The other ones are inside the reactors, skimmers, pipes, glasses. that sort of things i'll try a pics but focus is hard when that small. But since where on those should i leave them alone as well and not bother to remove them?

 

Pineapple sponge?

http://www.3reef.com/forums/id/pineapple-sponge-50428.html#post465627

Jack

 

Could be, they seem smaller though but yes.