little white bugs in my tank

SpottedFish

I have a bunch of tiny little white bugs in my fish tank and I cant figure out what they are.

http://image71.webshots.com/71/5/74/...0wOOyPU_fs.jpg

Thats the best picture I could get of them. They are very, very small. One would fit on the head of a pin. They are not on the fish, just in the tank, mostly on the glass, on the bottom and ALL over my bubbler bar. They are white and disk shaped. There are a ton of them in the tank. They are not eggs, they are alive and are moving around.

I thought they might be copepods but Im not sure. I havent seen the fish eat them, which I think is what they do to copepods. If it matters, I have 1 rosy bar fish and 3 Leopard Cory catfish and Ive had them all for 4 years.

Does anybody know what these are? How can I get rid of them, or do I need to? What causes them?

nomel

I want to see them, but your picture is broken. It says "Forbidden" when trying to view it. I think you'll have to host it somewhere else (Imageshack, tinypic, etc) or change the permissions.

SpottedFish

hmm.... its a public link

try this

little white bugs pictures from friends & fun photos on webshots

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pi...9e&id=11816051

I also loaded it on facebook. Thats a public link

nomel

Wow, they're so small! Do they appear to be eating anything? I'll have no clue what they are...it's just very interesting!

MXS

It might be a baby of some kind of worm/parasite

Twistersmom

Do you see legs?
I had a mystery snail clutch hatch out, looked a lot like your picture. Most of them white and they where all climbing the glass.

SpottedFish

They are eating my shrimp pellets. I cant see if they have legs, but they appear to have them because of the way they move along the glass. They are fast.

I dont know how to get ride of them other than doing a full tank cleaning. Im afraid that they are eating all the food that my catfish eat, and there is nothing left for them to feed on.

Twistersmom

Can you capture one of them and get a better close up picture?

SpottedFish

Unfortunately, my camera only has an autofocus and wont focus on something that small. Im going to catch some and take them to work tomorrow and look at them under a microscope and try and take a picture. If I can, Ill post it.

SpottedFish

Ok, here are two pictures of the bugs under a microscope. They have little hairs all over them and look more green than white. I couldnt get a picture of them moving because they were too fast. When they did move, they had two tentacles that popped out to move them along.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pi...69&id=11816051

Does anyone have any idea what these are and where they came from? Im doing a complete tank change tomorrow. There's no other way to get rid of them all and Im afraid they are eating all the food that the catfish eat.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pi...b5&id=11816051