little bugs?

username

There are little tiny white bugs that crawl around on the glass of the tank, I can only see them when the water level is a little bit low. I dont know what they are or how to get rid of them. I even asked the guy at the fish store and he had no idea, he said it might be some type of local thing and didn't have any suggestions on what to do. Might someone out there help me?

bettababy

Copepods possibly... can you tell us more about your aquarium?
Freshwater or saltwater?
How long has it been set up?
What are your water params for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH? (and calcium if saltwater)
What animals are in the tank?

The more you can tell us the faster we can help you. If its possible to get a pic, that helps a lot. You might want to do a search for pictures of copepods. I will try to get some later tonight from my tank, and if I do I will come back and post them here for you to compare.

username

Its a 30 gallon freshwater tank, Its been set up for something around 5 years, with two moves. Rite now there is only one angel fish in it. The levels are all good, I dont know the exact numbers couse i've been using the test strips.

bettababy

Sounds like copepods to me....

miagrrl

copepods are annoying! thats what it sounds like to me. the good news is that you can get rid of them...well sorta. when i had just started out i got a nasty infestation of them- took about a month or so to eradicate them. the best way to "cope" with them (excuse the bad joke), is to be super diligent with all your regular maintenance, and eventually you will see less and less of them. they will not hurt your fish at all. they actually eat off excessive nutirents, so they will sorta serve a purpose if you can put up with them for a little bit. you can also wipe them from the glass with an algae scraper to reduce their numbers, but just know that they will come right back unless the nutirent problem is taken care of.

bettababy

Copepods are a sign of a healthy and established tank. They won't hurt anything and provided that tank stays healthy, they will be there.

With the fish and size of the tank, I wouldn't add another fish to eat them. The supply would go quick and that fish would be left without a good food supply. Most fish that feed heavily on copepods won't eat much else.

fish_4_all

I have tons of the little buggers in my tanks right now and the tanks are cycling. I am actually feeding the little buggers in order to build their populations for my Kuhli loaches when my tanks are finaly cycled. Hearty little buggers for sure as the cycle doesn't seem to have affected their numbers much at all.

They could also be water fleas from what I have been told. Haven't been able to tell the difference for sure yet with mine.

Their numbers will fluctuate from time to time but there is really no reason to worry about them. Getting up as much mulm and extra food as possible will control them somewhat as they would have less to feed on.