white specks

[chef]

Hello ever so knowledgeable reefing community. While gazing at my 93g cube this morning I noticed a sudden outbreak of what looks like pin-head sized white dots on my lr. should i be worried and any idea what this might be? Thanx

[Cal_stir]

do they move?

[ScubaSteve]

Try to get a pick up if you can. This could be a ton of things.

[FishyFishy!]

Are they white dots or spirals?

[chef]

hard to get a pick as they are very small. not spirals which i presume would be snail eggs. basically showed up over night.

[Kelvin]

hard to get a pick as they are very small. not spirals which i presume would be snail eggs. basically showed up over night.

Ick

[chef]

Ick on rock and not fish? How would I rid myself of it

[chef]

Am I in deep if it's ich on my LR. What's the safest way to rid of it? Help

[wingedfish]

it is not ich on your live rock. could be sponge, copapods, algae, whatever it is, a better description and a picture will help and it it very likely good or not harmful.

[Cal_stir]

agreed, not ich, ich must host a fish, probably copepods

[ScubaSteve]

agreed, not ich, ich must host a fish, probably copepods

Not necessarily. If it were ich (which I will bet good money it isn't), the ich goes through a cyst stage where the cyst is attached to the substrate. These are actually quite large and can be visible as white spots.

I can almost guarantee you it's not ich. I have a few ideas what it may be but, really, I need a pic to be able to say what it is without talking out my a$$.

[chef]

These dots are all over my lr. Any ideas?

[pinkreef]

snail eggs, you probably have (cant remember the name) oval-dark shell 1/2 inch or so . they lay eggs wherever they find algae mostly on glass. that's my guess. Barb

[chef]

I'd be surprised if they were snail eggs. As they have been around for awhile, shouldn't they hatch? Scraped some of some equipment, they seemed quite hard.

[kien]

it looks to me like someone spat sand onto your rocks. Try seeing if you can wave your hand over them or shoot them off the rocks with a baster :-)

[chef]

They r stuck right on there kien. Had some on my pump and skimmer and had to scrape them off

[Aquattro]

Not ich :) Possibly calcium deposits?

[kien]

They r stuck right on there kien. Had some on my pump and skimmer and had to scrape them off

Okay cool, well that helps narrow it down a bit then :-)

My second guess would be something along the lines of a Spirorbis worm. They start as tiny white calcareious specs on surfaces and if they don't die they can appear as tiny spirals. I get these buggers growing in my sump. They're harmless, as far as I can tell. There are other such small calcareous worms that look similar. If you tough them are they hard ? Try pulling one off and seeing if there's a warm under the shell :-)