A couple days late but here they are:

http://i897.photobucket.com/albums/a..._7320_web1.jpg

http://i897.photobucket.com/albums/a..._7319_web1.jpg

http://i897.photobucket.com/albums/a..._7318_web1.jpg

http://i897.photobucket.com/albums/a..._7317_web1.jpg

http://i897.photobucket.com/albums/a..._7324_web1.jpg

Any thoughts on what I've got plaguing my tank? Is this hydroids? ~help~

Thank you in advance for your advice!

Yes most assuredly those are hydroids. Looks the same as what I had anyhow.

Any suggestions on the best plan of attack since they are wide-spread throughout the tank? I can't epoxy everything. :sad:

Probably 2-3 days away from having my parameters right to do my second 3 day black-out for the dinos too.

Getting put through my paces with this tank lately. Trying to stay positive though. Every challenge is a learning opportunity, right? Right....

:cry:

Hang in there, it can be challenging. I find things go in cycles, things are great, things are lousy, things are great, things are lousy .. the low points make the high points that much sweeter maybe? I dunno.

Is a pygmy (dwarf) angel an option for you? A flame angel perhaps or a potter's? Or you can try the filefish like monocus suggested, the only hesitation with those are they can be prone to eating other things you rather they didn't (ie., blastomussa's, acan's, other LPS, zoanthids..). USUALLY they are pretty well behaved but .............. . The other thing to watch for with filefish is they jump. Looking at them you'd think they weren't prone to jumping but they are.

What I have in the tank right now:

Yellow tang
Blue cheek trigger
2 false per clowns
Exquisite and canary wrasse
coral banded shrimp
cleaner shrimp
conch
2 halloween hermit crabs and a blue legged hermit crab
pompom crab
various snails

Corals: hammer head, anthelia, zenia, zoanthids, open brain, trumpet, duncan, yellow polys, brown polyps (don't know the name), a couple acros, a couple plating montiporas, and a birdsnest. (I think that's it)

Being "new", I'm not sure what would all be compatible with that.

Tried putting a peppermint shrimp in the other night for the 5 or so tiny aptasia I have in the tank and it lasted all of 10 minutes maybe. The 2 wrasses had a feeding frenzy. I couldn't even watch it was too savage. They didn't even say thanks for the entre, LOL.

Not too worried about jumpers. We have a pexiglass cover that covers almost the whole tank. We did it when we were under construction and just never took it off. Seems to be working ok. Our trigger is a jumper but he has been kept in so far (knock on wood).

Thanks for all your advice and encouragement. I needed "the boost". Much appreciated!

hydroids
 

it looks like you have aptasia-nothing like my hydroids.i'm getting upside down jelly fish from mine.the end of the stalk(pollup) pulses on mine.they eventually break off and i get upside down jellyfish.try prodding the head.if it retracts into itself you have aptasia

The third picture in particular (the side profile), there's no doubt those are hydroids. I guess some of the others could be small aiptasia but they don't usually stay small like that for very long and end up being unmistakably anemones (if they were). These look like the same hydroids I had. For what it's worth, they never really bothered anything but they just looked fugly. They started dwindling on their own after I added a potter's angel to my mix. Whether that's coincidence or not I can't say but I did read somewhere that pygmy angels might eat them. I'll see if I can find the link.

First thing I thought with the polyp things was aptasia too. However, they are growing outward (spreading) like a carpet on the most part. I definitely do have a few new aptasia though. I count 5 that are obvious. In the same time frame they individually have grown larger, maybe 2-3x the size of each of the little polyps you see in the pics and definitely retract. I haven't tried touching the little guys though. I am going in to clean all the powerheads, etc. before the blackout (for dinos) so I'll check it out and let you know. Maybe I'll grab a couple of pics of the aptasia too so it's easier to compare them against each other.

I'll look into the compatibility of the angel in my tank. I'd much rather have a nice looking fish control the issue than me have to deal with it manually. :biggrin:

The hydroids I had looked alot like the 3rd pic as well. The stems are very firm. I was able to peel off carpet like pieces at a time.