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After putting some new plants in one of the tanks, it has now lots of very small creatures which look like limpets (and perhaps they are) all over the tank when the lights are off. My question is what's the best way to eradicate them. Will a dwarf loach (Botia sidthmunki) eat them?

I've tried the lettuce leaf method. My pleco loved it, there was none left of it in the morning.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Do they look like this?
[link=http:// img.photobucket.com/albums/v398/Kleevage/limpet.jpg ]http:// img.photobucket.com/albums/v398/Kleevage/limpet.jpg [/link]

Lifenoodles you link does not work..

If you do find they are limpets, you should look in the posts I know alot of people are intrested in them maybe someone near you, I was intrested as well but you are to far.


Hope this helps when your done =p

Angel Eel

there are some posts with limpets in them they have pics in the links as well.

Last edited by angeleel at 18-Mar-2005 11:15http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/forums/General%20Freshwater/55393.html?200503111303

Last edited by angeleel at 18-Mar-2005 11:15

Cup_of_Lifenoodles: Yes, they look exactly like that. Any information about how I can get rid of them.

angeleel: I have seen some pictures of limpets around here. Mine are small, very small, about few milimetres long. They are also white/transparent (if you'll be able to see Cup_of_Lifenoodles then that's exactly it). That's why I'm not sure if they are limpets, or if they're the same limpets. In any case, the infected plant was put in the tank less than a week ago and now there are many of them. I don't think anyone will want to put such a thing in their tank deliberately...

Thanks to both of you.

Scientific name is Acroloxus lacustris.

I have them in all of my tanks, and think they're kinda cute. If you look REALLY closely, you can see their little mouths moving, cleaning the glass. They're actually a sign of good water quality, since they can't survive in poor conditions.

If you have a lot of them, you may be overfeeding or undercleaning the tank. Try feeding less, the population will be reduced. I wouldn't recommed attempting to eradicate them. I see no point, as they pose no harm to plants or fish.

They're annoying white dots. My yoyo loaches managed to eat them all but it took awhile. They aren't as easy to get to as physid snails. If you want to try loaches and squish a few to help them out then you should at least have alot fewer snails. I wouldn't go far enough to use chemicals on these since they really are harmless just annoying.

Thanks you Georgia and Sham.

I wasn't too worried about them being harmful, and a few wouldn't have bothered me, but there are quite a lot of them there and I don't like them for aesthetic reasons.

I wouldn't use chemicals because this tank has Germans Rams in it and I'm very cautious using chemicals with them (and generally). I also hope I'm not overfeeding, as apart from the rams there's only a pleco in the tank who most eats the algae but get veggies now and then. The Rams are fed slowly until they lose interest as I don't want anything left behind.

I might try a loach (although I don't want a whole bunch and I feel bad about getting only one) but I might just wait and see, maybe they'll disappear by themselves (or at least there will be fewer of them). If that doesn't work I guess I'll have to foul my water! Only joking of course.

Good water quality? Are you serious? Well then, now I don't feel so bad about them crawling over every inch of my aquarium. I've found that dwarf puffers are great snail eliminators, but temperaments vary greatly (usually leaning towards the extremely aggressive end of the spectrum).

Last edited by Cup_of_Lifenoodles at 18-Mar-2005 18:04

Limpets, as well as cyclops and planeria can't survive in "polluted" water. So, they're considered indicators of pretty good water quality. That may have more significance in the wild though. Even an uncycled tank might not be considered "polluted", but I've never seen them until after the tank cycles, and the water stabilizes.

Well, the tank houses a couple of German rams which I give lots of attention to regarding water quality, so I find it plausible. My other tank, which gets enough attention, although not as much, has none.

The plants have gone into the pond now and I suspect that most of the limpets has gone with them as there are significantly less of them now, although I can see a few sometimes. Unless the pair decides they want to spawn anytime until the weekend, the tank will be thoroughly cleaned so perhaps the limpets will be gone, although they don't bother me too much if they're not in big numbers.

Thanks a lot for the information!

If I fed my rams till they lost interest I know I'd be way overfeeding them. They'll clean up alot of small cichlid pellets or flakes if I let them. I have black neons in there now so I just make sure the rams get a few bites once or twice a day. Before that I was just giving them a few pellets each twice a day.

By "lose interest" I don't mean until they've stuffed themselves up and are lying on the gravel because they can't move anymore. I feed them until they don't act as if they were starved for the last decade, which is usually about 4 blood worms each. They would eat more if I gave them, yes, but they wouldn't jump out of the tank to get (not that I make them jump out of the tank for the food).

Unfortunately for me, they don't eat flakes or pellets, I tried several times and several types of food, but they went on hunger strikes if it wasn't live or frozen food. They've won this one and I now have enough dry food to last me until 2007.