Bugs you might encounter in your aquarium

[riise78]

Hi All,

Recently I found these creepy crawlers inside my 2ft shrimp tank.
Anyone of you ever encountered or know what these are?
Any advices are appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/x233nzuuar...127_225155.mp4

[KatG]

Hello,

I was cleaning my freshwater tank today and noticed this little dude swimming around, pretty sure it was in the filter media. I looked at the 'bugs' posted at the beginning of this post and it doesn't look like any of those.

2014-03-05 tank critter.jpgIt is small (2mm or 2.5 mm) appears to have a bunch of legs on its underside and sometimes tucks its tail in and swims a bit but it mostly just walks around on the bottom.

I haven't added anything new to my tank in a good 2-3 months or so. And it's very cold winter here, so it's not like it came in from outside!

The picture isn't great. It was the best i could get without a microscopic camera, but perhaps if someone already is familiar they'd be able to recognize it.

Can i put it back into the tank or is its newly discovered life short-lived?

Thanks in advance,

Kat

[limz_777]

hi guys, i'm having the same problem as bro kenng. my substrate is infested by these leggy worms with weird patterns on their back

had this in mine tank as well

[Trichopsis]

Some of these might be amphipods or isopods, small crustaceans very much like the woodlice you'll find in the garden, or the sea slaters and sandhoppers you might find on the beach or rocky shore. Some isopods might be predators or parasites (usually on fish), but many others are harmless scavengers.

[RonWill]

I was gonna say ostracodes but it's too longish to be one. Either way, I'll junk it unless I have larger fishes to clear these up.

[Branchie]

What the hell is this??? a booger with tentacles??? there are several in my 4 month old freshwater tank. some above the water on the glass and some clinging to plants and some floating around....
20141115_225308.jpg

[Trichopsis]

These look like fungus growing on decaying organic matter. Be careful, some of them can end up infecting livestock.

http://www.koivet.com/a_saprolegnia_koi.html

[Branchie]

These look like fungus growing on decaying organic matter. Be careful, some of them can end up infecting livestock.

http://www.koivet.com/a_saprolegnia_koi.html

How did it get in there? i have 2 zebra danios and a cory. (soon to be more) its a 25gal. 30gal filter.
(i clean the tank every 5 days...

[harryxing]

Hey. I did a rescape of my shrimp tank and my plants are from another goldfish tank. And I find this guy all alone. I wonder where it come from.



Anyone can identify fry?

And really be careful of damselfly. Even if I stay 5th storey also got damselfly larvae in my tank and I think that's the culprit killing my shrimps. They hide very well too and they grow bigger than shrimps.

[freyster]

Hi Harry i had the damselfly lavae as well in my shrimp tank. very good in hiding. I havent seen any damselfly in my house. Dont know where they come from.

[Tydepool]

Wow! Great info thanks. I knew I had a fresh infestation of nymps and I have been picking them out one by one, but only when I did a vac and found a fully formed damsel fly (and half of my shrimp were gone,) did I fully appreciate how dangerous these little suckers are.

[Dscheng]

Wa what the... What bug is that? With horned eyes.. quite big.. I faster scoop out.

[Trichopsis]

That's a dragonfly nymph.

[Dscheng]

I scoop it out and feed to angel fish. But they seem to ignore it.

[Maru]

Thats huge. Anyway i also found a couple 5mm damselfy larvae on my cucumber that i placed in my tank for the shrimps n oto. Need to find some way to trap and remove them :S

i thought my previous introduction of boraras had them eradicated

[michebai]

I found some of these tiny things running in and out of the gravel in my aquarium when I was cleaning last night. I also found a bunch of baby shrimp nearby so I hope this thing isn't harmful! Please help me figure out what it is!!!IMG_7693.JPG

[RonWill]

Looks like a freshwater ostracod (or similar) and should be harmless. Vac it out if that bugger bothers ya.

Someone else might be able to provide a better ID though.

[Trichopsis]

Look like some sort of aquatic isopod or amphipod - these are small scavenging crustaceans that resemble woodlice, most probably harmless to shrimps but might compete for food.

One such form that's found in temperate countries is the water louse (Asellus aquaticus).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asellus_aquaticus

[RonWill]

Danged... looks like cockroaches!!!

[michebai]

I don't care if it's there as long as it's harmless! But how the heck did it get in there? Could it have come in with the latest fish and shrimp I bought from the fish store?