Fleas In Tank?

[sahmof2]

We are cycling a 55 gallon saltwater tank. We set it up 6 days ago. We put white live sand and green algae in it yesterday. We bought the tank from a man who didn't have room for it. It came with 100+ pounds of live rock which we brought in the original water. All tests were correct except the nitrates were over 200 ppm. Right now it is about 40 ppm after several water changes. Yesterday we found a snail. We have seen a glass anemone. Tonight we have found things crawling on the live rock that have legs and two front whiskers. They look like large clear fleas. They range in size from 2mm to 4mm. There are several clear tubes that look like worm cocoons on the live rock. Is there something we can get to remove hair algae that will not hurt store bought algaes. We are not able to get a good picture at the moment.

 

[SkiFletch]

Sounds like the "fleas" are copepods or amphipods, very common micro-invertebrates. If you've spotted a glass nem, time for peppermint shrimp, berghia nudibranchs, or chemical removal. If you want to remove hair algae without killing the store-bought macro, you'll have to control nitrates and phosphates.

 

[Filmoholic]

Get some Rowaphos for hair algae. Seems to take care of all of it.