White on live rock

[raggedreef]

Hey all,
I am very new to saltwater aquariums and am getting a little worried about my tank. It has been running for about two weeks now with fish and live rock in it for five days. By the second day I started noticing some white on one of my live rocks and now it seems to be spreading. I did some research and it seems like some of it could be some type of worm but the rest of it almost looks like a very thin layer of dried salt. I also have a four stipe damsel that has always had one little white spot on a fin that now seems to be growing, I don't know if this is related or not. I have two damsels, a peppermint shrimp, and just noticed that one of my llive rocks has two feather dusters on it which I found rather exciting. Any suggestions would be helpful.
Thanks

 

[dcantucson]

A picture would be helpful. By the description it sounds like it could possibly be Flat worms.

 

[raggedreef]

I took a pretty decent pic of what it is but I can't get it to post. do you have an email that I could send it to?
thanks for the help

 

[raggedreef]

I was able to attach the pic to this message. I have read more and think that I may have flat worms and possibly some cycling.
any ideas?

 

[dcantucson]

Flat worms? Looks like it could be bleached coralline alage but not sure.

 

[raggedreef]

What would I do to fix that? Less light time on the tank? I noticed there is one group on one of my other rocks that does look exactly like a picture that I saw of flat worms.

 

[dcantucson]

Maybe the white is from damage done by Flat worms. Hard for me to see.

 

[dcantucson]

Do they look like this:

'Flatworms' on Vimeo

 

[d2mini]

If the tank is new, it's probably your coralline algae bleaching. If that's what it is, it's quite normal.

 

[raggedreef]

Is that something that I need to be worried about or is it okay?

 

[dcantucson]

What do you have as lighting?

 

[raggedreef]

They don't look like the flatworm video, they look like little round white spots in some areas and the other areas look chalky.

 

[dcantucson]

Probably bleaching then.

 

[raggedreef]

I use an Ocean Sun 10,000 K 18" bulb

 

[dcantucson]

I think that's under 20 watts or around 15 watts so that isn't too much light. In fact for corals at least 4 watts per gallon is what's recommended.

:dunno: Have you tested your water?

 

[raggedreef]

It is a fifteen watt bulb. It is what was recommended to me by the store where I bought everything. I am going to do a water test tonight. I feel that the fish are doing extremely well, my peppermint shrimp seems to be doing good, and I have two very small feather dusters that I just noticed yesterday that seem to be doing good, so I haven't been too worried about water quality, but i do feel that I need to test it.

 

[ErinCahir]

Did you go through a cycle before you added your livestock? If not, you most definitely need to test your water. Your picture looks like it could be some white coraline, which is what happens when coraline gets exposed to the air. It will come back on it's own.
Also, with two damsels in a ten gallon tank you are at your stocking limit.

And welcome to the site!

 

[raggedreef]

Yeah I ran the tank for over a week with a filter made for a fifty gallon tank. I was told that the damsels can help jump start the tank so I could put them in sooner than most other fish. I am going to leave it this way for a while and then hopefully upgrade to a larger tank so I can add more. Just started with this because i had the ten gallon tank and wanted to see if I enjoyed doing the saltwater thing. So far I love it.
thanks for the info

 

[ErinCahir]

Damsels are hardy and can most likely survive a cycle, however, its pretty old school (and cruel) to cycle a tank with fish. You should get your water tested ASAP.

 

[Tristan]

@erin. if he had 3 damsels would you say ........they "party" hardy?LOL

ok lame joke