What are these on my rocks?

mt4no1

I have little white dots on the rocks in my aquarium, they started about a month ago, I cleaned my tank, changed filters, etc. all my fish are fine -nothing on them, activity and appetite are normal. So what are your thoughts, they are starting to come back now... It is not ick. I have pictures but won't let me upload them here from my phone.... Thanks!
Posted via Mobile Device

Romad

It's really hard to tell without a pic or a similar picture - can you google image water mites and see if it looks like them?

Do you have any snails? Could it be egg??

Olympia

Yea, sounds a lot like nerite snail eggs.
That is if you have nerite snails.
It'd help to know about everything currently in the tank.

mt4no1

They arent eggs, (I do have 2 zebra snails) There are too many of them, they are really hard, (like it takes several scrapings with your fingernail to get them off the rock) I thought at first they were calcium deposits, but now not so sure, I use a filter from the faucet to fill my tank. I emailed the photo to my computer, so here are two of them, but they are getting to be everywhere again. I have tested all of my levels and everything is where it should be...????

Attached Images

securedownload[1] (4).jpg (50.8 KB, 20 views)

mt4no1

well I googled that snail and that is what I have, They called them Zebra snails at CCAqua where I buy all my fish, etc... Could there be literally hundreds of these in the tank though??? Do they lay that many???

Olympia

Ohhhh yea. And they are hard to scrape off like you said.
The good news is they won't hatch in freshwater.
The bad news is the snails don't know that and will keep breeding. If you have a second tank, I'd separate the snails to stop this...

mt4no1

ReallyWow, I have had these snails for about 7 months now and this just started last month. Why wont they hatch in freshwater if they are freshwater snails??? No I don't have another tank :( Hubby wont let me., :) He said my 4 dogs, cat and 60 gallon are enough, haha

AND they are never even NEAR each other, Must be while I am sleeping, :)

Olympia

Haha, they are weird guys. They live perfectly fine and healthy lives in fresh water. I'm not totally sure why, the eggs just need salt to hatch. On rare occasion an egg may hatch in freshwater, but probably won't happen.