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I have a 10g planted tank, stocked only with MTS and cherry shrimp.

The other day I noticed these 'things' in the tank. They're maybe 2mm long, white, they move on the glass. I don't clean algae off the sides or back because of the snails and that's where the majority of them are. I've seen some actually in the water but it's difficult to tell if they're swimming or just being moved along. The tank only has small corner-type filter so there isn't much current though.

Here are a few pics...







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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

They could be newborn snails. If I'm not mistaken, Maylaysian Trumpet Snails give live birth.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Thats what I was thinking...baby snails.

I have egg laying snails in my tanks (ramshorn and pond), but I had a piece of Malaysian DW in my 10g and took it out to clean it once. I looked really closely and it looked like a bunch of little bugs on it...they were grayish-white. I finally realized they were baby snails. There were hundreds of them on that piece of wood.

*Kristin*

Hmm. Interesting.

Could be baby snails, though I think that newborn Malaysian Livebearing Snails are a bit bigger than 2mm.

Another possibillity to check out is this. Watch for signs of movement that is too rapid to be that of a snail, particularly movement in small circles. If you see that, then you could have an ostracod colony.

Ostracods are small crustaceans with bean-shaped shells into which they can retract every part of the body including the limbs. They've been around for millions of years, and are principally detritus feeders. I had them in my Panda Fun Palace several years back. Some people consider them unsightly and try to get rid of them, while others are more motivated by curiosity, especially when they see them moving about. Usually, they're harmless in themselves, and their presence is a sign that you have nutrients to maintain their numbers - i.e., you've been a bit generous with the fish food recently!

Fishes will pick at them, but the majority of small aquarium fishes find the shells a bit tough. Dwarf Cichlids such as Apistogramma species, on the other hand, will deal with them quite effectively, as will some Labyrinth Fishes. If you have, for example, any Dwarf Gouramis or Bettas in the aquarium and they show LOTS of interest in these critters, then chances are you have ostracods, and the Labyrinth Fishes are helping themselves to a free lunch.

Pearl and Three-Spot/Cosby/Gold Gouramis will probably munch on them too.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Baby trumpet snails are noticeable as trumpet snails. You could have any number of small aquatic critter. I've noticed various little white and grey critters show up in my snail or shrimp only tanks and I think it's because there are no real predators. Lacking fish to eat them they happily multiply. Generally they do no harm, help clean up the tank, and are just a natural part of any ecosystem. Why those with freshwater tanks get so upset over living things showing up in their tanks that are not fish is beyond me. All the pods and various other critters in my saltwater tank are invaluable to keeping it clean and stable so I'm just as happy to see them in my freshwater tanks. If you do want to get rid of them just increase the current a little. They usually don't stick around then.

Sham, the reason many freshwater aquarists are wary when invertebrates of unknown provenance appear in their aquaria is, quite simply, because they do not know for certain what has made an appearance. Identification of many frreshwater invertebrates (with the exception of a limited number of distinctive species intentionally introduced as pet animals, or whose identity has been known for a long time such as Malaysian Livebearing Snails) is frequently a task requiring the services of a professional and recourse to a zoology lab, particularly if identification to species level is desired. When I acquired my ostracod population a few years back, the reason I wasn't suspicious was because I'd already read about them in a TFH back number, and knew [1] what they were, and [2] that they were harmless detritivores. Without that knowledge from that source, I'd have been pretty suspicious of the little things crawling on my bogwood!

By contrast, marine aquaria are populated with highly distinctive and much more readily identificable animals from coral reefs, frequently imported with the intention that they will become prized members of the aquarium fauna (and in some cases with price tags to match!). There's a world of difference between your introducing animals of known provenance (many of which you have paid for, and which have been identified for you in advance) and 'odd critters' appearing seemingly from nowhere. Having said that, some unwelcome surprises can turn up in live rock - Aiptasia anemones that reach plague proportions when they reproduce like Triffids, for example, or Mantis Shrimps that are capable of making your tank explode if they throw a hissy fit!

Even with creatures of known provenance in the marine aquarium, care is still required. Some creatures are specialised - bumblebee shrimps that eat sea urchin tube feet for example, and which need the regular sacrifice of sea urchins to keep them alive. Or specialised nudibranchs that require anemones to feed upon, because they sequester the cnidoblasts or stinging cells of the anemone for their own defence. Others are dangerous to humans - cone shells (the Geography Cone has a venom that is lethal to humans) and the infamous Blue Ring Octopus to name two creatures whose appearance in your aquarium you would be rightly worried about if it happened haphazardly.

Plus, several freshwater invertebrates are problematic where fish are concerned - certain bivalve molluscs which produce parasitic larvae when they reproduce (Glochidia). Again, TFH warned me about these, and in particular warned me that North American bivalves are to be approached with great care and a LOT of suspicion because of their life cycles.

Worse still, some freshwater invertebrates can harbour some very unwelcome guests, not just unwelcome to the fishes, but to their human owners too. I would be extremely wary of taking on board any tropical snail of unknown provenance, because quite a few tropical snails other than the regular hobby snails are intermediate hosts for schistosomes - extremely dangerous parasites of humans that cause debilitating, serious illness and indeed kill quite a few people each year in the developing world. If I was told that a snail came from Lake Victoria in Africa, I wouldn't touch it with a 40 foot barge pole unless it had been quarantined for a LONG time, because Lake Victoria is well known to students of tropical medicine as a seething pit of schistosomes, particularly Schistosoma haematobium, one of the nastiest of the lot. Take a look at this page and be very afraid of coming into contact with this group of organisms. This is before we delve into the wonderful world of tapeworms, leeches and assorted nematode worms. Check out Guinea Worms (intermediate host is an aquatic copepod) for another example of something you wouldn't want to turn up in your aquarium between water changes ...

Even if we discount organisms with serious human health implications (and it is an unwise person that discounts them completely - a strain of Ebola made an appearance in Virginia thanks to bad hygeine practises in handling monkeys for research labs in the Philippines, where they were sourced from), the scope for something unknown to prove to be a pest remains open with any unidentified organism. Marine aquarists have people identifying masses of invertebrates on their behalf because there is money to be made in so doing, and money to be made in selling the desirable species on the market - with some coral fragments changing hands for £50 apiece here in the UK, there's a LOT of money to be made here! No such infrastructure exists for the majority of freshwater invertebrates, and so, a mystery organism could prove to be harmless, merely an unsightly nuisance, or it could end up as a slate wiper among the fishes, either directly or because it's harbouring unwelcome, lethal passengers. Goodness knows there's enough of those in existence already in the world of fish diseases, and some of the ones we know about are bad enough - Microsporidians such as NTD being a classic example. So Theresa's caution in wondering whether or not her unknown critters are likely to be a problem rests on fairly solid foundations.

And with that essay, I'll get back to convalescing ...


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

These little white worms are most likely Planeria, they are usually introduced on live plants. They feed on micro organisms and will harm fish spawn and possibly small fry.

They look like MLS. I to have some of those. When do they appear? The MLS in my tank only come out after the lights go off and dissappear when the lights come back on.

To add one more guess, they may be copepads. Tear drop shaped crustaceans that will be dragging a pair of egg cases. They are not dangerous.



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"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

Oh, quick additional snippet - according to my Braz Walker pocket book, Flying Foxes (listed in this work as Epalzeorhynchus kallopterus) are an effective planaria controller. Apparently they form part of the Flying fox's natural diet in the wild.

As for the critters in question, I don't think they're copepods though, because they're usually free swimming. Whenever I've had Cyclops turn up in a Daphnia shipment (and it's more often than not that you do get Cyclops as fellow travellers with Daphnia) they've always been free swimming, with only very occasional individuals pausing for rest against the glass. Plus, some of the individuals that do pause for rest don't have egg sacs.

One way in which you can tell if they're snails though - try and suck one off the glass with an eye dropper. If it starts taking rapid evasive action, then you know for certain they're NOT snails!


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

I haven't got a clue what 90% of the critters in my marine tank are. The red worm things with tentacles did make me wonder but they haven't done any harm so far. You also get tons of things that can cause damage. For awhile I had to go on a pod indentification quest because I had some potentially dangerous ones that feed off fish. They eventually turned out to actually be harmless. When you add liverock to your tank you never know what you'll get and quite often you get things that are not safe. I can link you to 5 threads on mystery crabs which turn out to be potentially or known highly poisonous species. Noone paid for those. There are also about 10 more better known critters in my tank which I can't ID because there are just too many similar species. Then there's these nudibranches which I'm sure are harmful but hopefully will die out before I decide to add any corals.

If you think everything that shows up in a marine tank is purchased, IDed and added on purpose you obviously have never set one up. There are so many different critters even the largest of hitchhiker ID sites or books are rarely of any help and there's probably a nearly 50% chance that something you get could be harmful. I can't count how many hours I've spent going through my tank just watching all the hitchhikers trying to determine what eats what and what might cause problems. Compared to that the tiny little white thing in my planted shrimp tank do not concern me unless shrimp or snails start coming up missing. They all help keep a tank in good condition so as long as they aren't interfering with the animals I did pay to add to my tank I have no intention of harming them.