Wondering why my water is full of particles...

[PB_Smith]

then I noticed that the particles are swimming!!
Yeah, my refugium has produced and I now have a flourishing population of copepods all throughout my tank.
I have had them for a couple months but I guess all the stars fell into alignment this week because it looks like miniscule snow flurries in the tank and my Coral Beauty angel is absolutely loving it.

no wonder my angel and damsel have had less of an appetite when I feed them lately, yet always appear to have full bellies.

 

[CoeurSauvage]

From what I've read, copepods are a sign of a very healthy tank! Congratulations !


Sent from my iPod touch using Aquarium Advice

 

[carey]

Pods will reproduce sometimes giving you a glut of them, then they will fall back into a normal population.

It goes up and down it seems, sometimes you will have thousands on the glass and some days just on the rocks.

 

[PB_Smith]

Wow!
Ok so yesterday when I posted this my tank looked like it was full of fine silt floating around. This morning the "silt" is gone but has been replaced with gillions of baby pods.
I'm guessing that the "silt" stuff was eggs/larva and they just grew enough overnight to be distinguishable.
I wish they were just a bit bigger, my angel, damsel and pseudochromis are always grazing on them, but my cardinals only take notice of the exceptionally big adults.

 

[PB_Smith]

I take that back.
It would appear that my polka-dot cardinal has discovered that the pods are super easy to see against the black background. He is back there right now chowing down, LOL.

 

[PB_Smith]

Ok, it happened again this morning.
I turn on the tank lights and a cloud about 4"-5" in diameter starts moving from the area under my in-tank fuge up towards the light.
My first thought was "Why is my powerhead sucking air?" because it looked like a bunch of micro-bubbles, but it is another explosion of pods.
My tank is now silly with the little buggers.

My question for those of you with more reef experience than I, can pods being that dense in the water get "stuck" in the fishes gills causing them to "flash" occasionally.
My angel and pseudo have been doing it off and on for about 4 days, yet show absolutely no signs of any parasites. They are also the most active in the tank, constantly on the go.
I'm thinking maybe they are getting some pods lodged in their gills occasionally.
Does that sound reasonable or has anyone had the same experience when the pods get busy and fill the tank with babies?