Something spawned

Today while packing up things I saw out of the corner of my eye a moving mass in one of my tanks. It's a 75 gallon which only houses rock, some macros algaes and one little butterfly fish I net caught myself in Rhode Island last year. The tank is part of a larger system though that houses a multitude of different critters.

I have no idea what they might be the spawn of. They are incredibly tiny, perhaps just a smidgeon larger than baby brine and these definitely have a tail. White and swim all over the place, but stay in their group while doing it.

I suppose it could be the result of any number of different kinds of shrimp I have spawning. However, the larvae would all have had to travel through more than 100 feet of plumbing not to mention one big honking pump and a 150gal sump in order to get to a different tank...and then they all ended up in the same tank?

I'm really perplexed what they could possibly be. I wonder if one out of the thousands would actually grow to adulthood and then I could see what they are!

 

Jp, do you have a refugium to house it in hopes that it will grow without getting eaten!? Curious as to what it could be!

 

The travel and pump would not be a issue but for them to stay in a group thats a a tad weird. I have had many animals make it past pumps .and down piping but they all ended up in different tanks in the system and not as a gang . Maybe you have homing shrimps LOL

 

Yeah I know the pump isn't all that big of a deal, but to have so many survive is.

I'm curious now if they can't be baby brine from some frozen I fed a little while. I don't see how the eggs ould still be viable after a flash freeze and sitting so long afterwards. Not to mention they all ended up in one tank but no where else in the system that I can see? It would be quite a feat if they were though.

 

know anybody with a microscope?

 

It might be a crazy chance but it is possible your brine shrimp did have eggs, I'm a fairly new SW tank’er in comparison to some to the brilliance that resides here. However, Artemia a.k.a. sea monkeys are very hardy and if you have ever had a sea monkey set up as a kid or adult you see to condition that they come in, usually a liquid package of the eggs or larva, light sealed and on a store shelf for a year or so. The crustacean, Artemia, CAN survive a freeze and are fully anaerobic( no O2 needed), thinking back to my zoology class in college a few years ago, I believe that this particular organism ( in egg stage) is a facultative anaerobe, meaning they can use O2 if present. The eggs are not in of “normal” egg requirements and can survive extreme conditions. Where the sea monkey are found in the wild, the waters usually freeze so the species must be able to survive harsher conditions such as your freezer.

But who knows it may be something completely different…:speechles
Here is a pic of a Artemia:

 

Do you have any cleaner shrimp or fire shrimp

 

Yes thats the puzzling part to me also in that they are all in the one tank as a herd LOL If you get one I can look at it under a microscope to tell for sure what they are .. But as Muceyl said that in the lake beds where they come from the temps get very very cold and they then get as hot while they lie dormant waiting for water to make the salt ponds for them to hatch in . Freeze drying does not harm them so i doubt freezing would either.

 

If your cleaner shrimp had babies they would molt a day or two after you seen the babies they also will group together and can make it through pumps and plumping due to there size. i had a pair that had multiple batches together what was wierd was they both were having babies not just 1 of them. they would release them 2 - 3 time a month.