Are Springtails, Collembola really harmless?

[Kyrojinx]

Have a 2 feet CRS tank for about 8 months now. My adult CRS have been constantly breeding. Started with 10 adult CRS and CBS and have abt 20+ adults now. Problem is i used to find 20-30 babies just chilling on the fissidens. Nowadays, i hardly see any babies anymore but a few of my shrimps are always berried....

I also noticed a population boom of springtails or collembola. I wonder if they are eating the babies. Read that they are harmless... hitchhikers from some fissidens i bought a few months back

Anyone has any experience or advice for this?

[Ecalyte]

I've seen this in a local LFS, and I find it quite disgusting T_T Did you buy the Fissidens from a west side LFS? If you did, I think we both know where from..

Either way, I cannot say for sure if they are the cause of your babies dying, but as a rule of thumb for me.. anything that isn't supposed to be there, needs to go. I've been reading up, and many of the resources claim that these guys will eat only waste and micro organisms.. the latter is an important food source for shrimplets aged 1-3 days old.. So while they MAY NOT be feasting on the shrimplets, your collembola could be an indirect cause of shrimplet death by depriving them of their food source... Also, are you sure that these are Collembola to begin with? Because all the help you're going to get will be pertaining to this particular species, so need to get it right hehehe

I really hope someone with more in-depth knowledge on this can shed some mystery..

[Kyrojinx]

Nah i bought the fissidens from a LFS in the East actually. Anyway i should have removed them when i had the chance before. Read they were harmless so thought it was all part of the ecology of the tank. Seems im paying the price now. I have literally hundreds of them. Pretty sure they are Collembola. have checked multiple pics.

Has anyone got any suggestions on how to remove without destroying the aquascape?

[Kyrojinx]

Seems like i have little luck with setups haha. last year when i setup my first tank. Bought some pellia from a LFS with cyno bacteria on it. being clueless at that time and just jumping into the hobby was costly as it took over the tank and i had to restart. Then it was dragonfly nymphs eating my shrimps... Now its collembolas haha it never ends ...... sigh

[stormhawk]

Last I checked, springtails only "float" on the surface of the water but not underneath it in a submerged manner. This might be another insect altogether. Can you take a picture of the critters? I believe what you have are actually what the westerners call as Scuds or Gammaridean amphipods. They're great as fish food, if that is what you have.

[Kyrojinx]

I see. I will try and take a picture of it. They are really small though.

[reiner09]

Yup..i only have springtails springing around on the surface..have not really notice them diving into the water..like what mod storm said it might not be springtails afterall but some other creatures..the springtails in my tank either 'springs' on the surface or on my floating plants..didnt have much problem with them

[stormhawk]

If you see things jumping on the water, they're not springtails but some sort of aquatic mite. I always get them in some worm cultures. They are lighter than water and are hard to drown.

[Kyrojinx]

Hmm in that case I think I mist have gotten it wrong. These bugs are white/silvery have abt 8-10 legs and are everywhere from fissidens to roaming on the tank glass. Never at the surface. Will try and borrow a camera to take a macro shot. iPhone not good enough.

[stormhawk]

Have a look at this webpage, do they look like anything in those pictures?

http://www.aquaticinsect.net/aquatic-crustaceans/206/

[alvinchan80]

Have a look at this webpage, do they look like anything in those pictures?

http://www.aquaticinsect.net/aquatic-crustaceans/206/

just looking at them make my hair stand.... really look like what I have seen at an LFS......

[stormhawk]

People in the West actually culture these as live foods.

I can understand the hair-stand thing. Up-close they look ugly as hell.

[Navanod]

Eeeeeeeee....hair really stand!
I hate mites, of any sort!

[stormhawk]

I don't mind mites so much as long as they don't eat the eggs of my killies that are in incubation.. when that happens I go to war and kill them all....

[reiner09]

If you see things jumping on the water, they're not springtails but some sort of aquatic mite. I always get them in some worm cultures. They are lighter than water and are hard to drown.

oh so mine isn't springtail too? hmm...wonder what are they..but they seem harmless though...since they are always on the surface..

[stormhawk]

Springtails congregate in groups on the surface of the water. If the insects in your case were jumping all over the place, then they are mites.

[reiner09]

Springtails congregate in groups on the surface of the water. If the insects in your case were jumping all over the place, then they are mites.

ahh...yep they do congregate and jump all over the place only when I 'Attack' them aha..sorry that i forgot to specify about the attacking them part(using a finger to approach them )..
i used this thread to identify them: http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum/showthread.php/34333-Bugs-you-might-encounter-in-your-aquarium

so i presume mine are springtails afterall..

[Kyrojinx]

Have a look at this webpage, do they look like anything in those pictures?

http://www.aquaticinsect.net/aquatic-crustaceans/206/

Yes!!! It's them!!! Are they harmful to shrimplets. I have an army in the tank. Anyway to eradicate them without harming shrimps?

[Kyrojinx]

just looking at them make my hair stand.... really look like what I have seen at an LFS......

Haha yea, my wife says it's like hair lies on my fissidens. Looks gross.. In fact sometimes when I put my hand in the tank. Some climb on and hell the crawling is so ticklish and gross I have to shower immediately to wash that feeling off

[Navanod]

Hmmm...I just did some academic reading on this and they're NOT MITES. Gammaridae belongs to the superclass Crustacea, similar to shrimps, under the order Amphipoda (different footed). Shrimps fall under the order Decapoda (10 footed), which is where their evolution went their own ways.
In another words, these are grouped together with tiny shrimps and other planktonic critters as "krills".

I think they're indeed competing with the shrimplets for food and space, hence causing them to have reduced survival rates.

Water mites are these:
http://tolweb.org/Hydracarina


More related to spiders eh? Still yucky nonetheless.

Sorry, I studied zoology so I'm quite sticky bout such things. Hahaha!