Aliens In The Shrimp Tank

[rhostog]

My daughter's tank contains cherry shrimp including some baby shrimp, and a 'black oto'. And lots of Java moss and plants. Although I've been doing small regular water changes, I haven't cleaned the sand recently for fear of vacuuming up the shrimplets, so there's quite a lot of muck on the sand.

In the last few days, we've noticed some tiny white wriggly things stuck to the glass. They're 1-3mm long and look like tiny white slugs. Are these planaria (they don't look much like the pictures I've found, but perhaps they're young?) and will they harm the shrimp?

Also there are some very tiny things swimming around very fast, much smaller than a pin-head, but through magnifying glass you can see little antennae - are these water fleas? They're so tiny, it's difficult to tell what they look like.

Up until a couple of weeks ago, we had a couple of young platys in the tank, so perhaps we've always had these bugs and the platys were eating them? Are there any fish we could add when the babies have grown a bit, which will eat the bugs but are safe for adult shrimp and older babies?

Any advice would be welcome. I don't want to risk adding fish yet which might eat the shrimplets, but on the other hand, don't want these invaders to get out of control if they're likely to be harmful in the future.

 

[TylerFerretLord]

The wormy things could be any number of wormy thing. It's very difficult to get an exact id on them. CHances are that they're harmless however.

The specks are absolutely freshwater copepods. I have them in my tank, also harmless.

Your theory about the platies keeping them under control is correct. However, copepods are harmless and a large number of them will not do any harm.

(I also suggest you get trumpet snails; They'll clean up the muck withing two weeks and are very good to have in a tank.)

 

[rhostog]

'Wormy things' - OK, I guess that's as good an ID as I can hope for!!! As long as they don't sound like anything harmful.

My daughter will like knowing that the tiny things are copepods. They have to talk about their pets in French lessons, and I can just imagine the French teacher's face...

Trumpet snails are OK with shrimp, then, even babies? I've always been a bit reluctant to get snails, as they do seem to get out of hand easily. Any downsides?

Thanks very much for the advice - greatly appreciated.

 

[TylerFerretLord]

Some neat copepod links: Here, here and here.

Most of the snails that can be kept do have a reputation of being able to explode in number, yes, but this is usually do to overfeeding, having a lot of built up detritus (as in your case) or other situations that give them lots of food. They eat it all and rapidly propagate, but then there isn't enough food to support them all and the population drops to a level that the tank can support.

Basically, ride it out and it will get better.

Trumpet snails are fine with shrimp. Totally incapable of harming anything other than algae . You'll probably find that even if there is a population explosion you won't really see much of it because the trumpets like to dig into the sand.

 

[rhostog]

Update: I added 5 Malaysian trumpet snails to the tank 2 months ago. They had babies almost immediately but as suggested, I don't see much of them. Within a few days, the white wiggly things had almost disappeared, and it's now several weeks since I've seen any at all. Result! Also the green film which used to grow over the sand at the front of the tank has completely disappeared. There is no hair algae in the tank, and most of the plants are doing fine. The shrimp have bred again and there are now loads of them, so I guess they're happy too.

Thanks again for the good advice - and for anyone else with the same problem, this solution worked really well for me!

 

[milkton]

i think i have the EXACT same problem with rhostog!

As you see from my other posts, i have always been complaining about the copepods. I, too, have "wormy things" in my shrimp tank. I have 1 assassin snail, is that the same as a trumpet snail? Anyways, it also likes to burrow in the sand substrate i have. It took out many tiny snails do you think i can fit another assassin snail in my 2.5 gallon shrimp tank?

NOTE: i have a few tiny black critters on the sides of my tank above the water. They seem to dislike the water and when i try pushing them down to drown them, they quickly jump back up onto the surface. Can i please know what they are? They make me want to puke! I hate bugs! I'm only 14 so i dont know alot, haha!

 

[rhostog]

Sorry for not replying sooner - I was hoping someone more knowledgeable could answer! I'm afraid I don't know much about assassin snails - but they're not the same as Malaysian Trumpet snails. And I've no idea about the black things - sorry! If your assassin snail eats other snails, then this solution probably won't work for you, as it would eat the MTs. Perhaps you could re-home him and add some MTs instead? They'll like your sand substrate too.
Good luck - I don't like bugs either, so I can sympathise.

 

[TylerFerretLord]

The black things are probably a semi-aquatic springtail species- An insect-like hexapod that feeds primarily on surface films and fungi.