white tentacales growing in saltwater filter! what are they??

Question

the other day i cleaned out the filter an found hundreds of the white rice like things growing everywhere, what could they be?

Answer 1

Are these inside the filter box, or inside the strainer of the uptake tube? If inside the filter box itself, and these are about 1/4 of an inch or so in size, there are small sponges and tunicates that show up that fit this description (see photo: http://www.reefs.org/hhfaq/sponges/photoalbum_photo_view?b_start=0 ). Don't worry about these - just consider then "extra filtration" since these are filter feeders that remove minute particles of food from the water.

If longer and around the area of the strainer, they might be anything from spaghetti worms (harmless) that have taken up residence to an anemone (even the nuisance aiptasia) that has gotten caught (turn off the filter and remove the tube to get it out), or even parts of stems from the microalgae caulerpa that have stuck to the filter.

See the links below to see if you can identify whe critters if the sponge above wasn't what you have:

Answer 2

If they don't look like the picture, then clean it with bleach. 1 part bleach and 20 Parts water. RINSE REALLY WELL. REALLY REALLY WELL!! Rinse at least 15 times! MAYBE MORE!! But Bleach is an excellent way to clean up a fish tank.. that had a diseased fish.

Answer 3

CLEAN OUT ENTIRE FISH TANK WITH BLEACH (after taking out fish ofcourse then take to fish shop to redo the salt water set-up