White particles/microorganisms on glass

I'm wondering what these thousands of tiny particles clinging to my aquarium glass could be. Here's a little background on when/why they appeared.

Yesterday I tried to bait a mantis shrimp with krill to get him out of my tank (he was killing everything)...this was not a success. I had to resort to taking all of my LR out of the tank (he had a home in several pieces of LR) and flushing him out with cold freshwater. This was a success. I had some minor die off due to the cold freshwater but my sponges and button polyps (came on LR) are still alive. Unfortunately I had to watch some cool red/brown and purple/brown brittle star babies wash down the drain

Anyway, after placing all of the LR back in my 29 gallon SW tank, thousands of tiny little white short little hairs are clinging to my glass. I know I can just wipe them off but I'm curious as to what they are and if they are bad/good/neutral for my tank (physically, not visually).

Any ideas? Is this a result of the die off on my LR?

 

BTW, regarding die off, the biggest thing I noticed was where I had brown algae cover that looked like paint on my one rock, turned to a very dark purple right away and feels like moss. Is/was this beneficial bacteria or just algae?

Forgive me, for I am a noob

 

did these bugs move around or just cling and stay put?

 

Any possibility that you disturbed some snail eggs? Check this link for a picture:

Neritina natalensis - in English

There are snails that lay eggs that fit the description that you offered – I mentioned it since large swings in salinity and temperature can “force” snails to spawn.

Recently we brought up Foraminiferans in another thread, many different kinds here, check out this link:

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-07/rs/index.php

btw, the age old saying "a pictures worth a thousand words" can be translated to "a pictures worth a thousand posts" and that echo's loudly on these forums

 

Sorry quick camera phone pic before work is all I had time to snap.

 

Just cling and stay put. The water movement makes the tail end of these little hair-like things move but they don't move on their own.

 

Anything is possible. I don't have any Neritinas in there but eggs could have came along as hitchhikers I guess. I just have a feeling that these aren't eggs. As far as forced spawning of my turbo snails, there were no swings of temp or salinity...they remained stable during this breakdown and setup of my LR.

On the subject of foraminiferans, they don't look like this, these little short hair-looking things are more thin and narrow than round.

 

Absolutely

Whatever they are, I'm wondering why I didn't have any my 1st week and then as soon as I put LR rinsed in freshwater, back in my tank, thousands appear. Its quite vexing.

 

Looks like just suspend particals that landed on the film algae on the glass after you stirred up the sand. Should wipe away just fine. If not that then pods that are on the glass for the same reason.

 

Hard to say from the picture - I'll guess tube worms.