Okay... this is a five-gallon tank, with *NO* fish, two happily breeding snails that came out of nowhere. I think I found an egg clutch today, how exciting!!! It's a jelly-like substance with many white dots on the gravel against the glass, so I assume that means they're just common pond snails, and not some apple variety.
It also had one random hydra hanging around on a leaf, which I manually removed from the tank in hopes that it was the only one. I've seen hide nor hair of them since, but I realize that they may very well still show up. Because of this, I have decided to let the tank go "back to nature" so to speak and not put any fish in there for a while.
Speaking of hydra, I actually told my plant supplier about the little fellows, and she examined her own stock and realized she had them, too. She was very apologetic, and appreciative of Uncle Scott's suggestions on how to get rid of them. (I sent her a link to a GL article.) She offered to refund me, but I can't bring myself to accept it... :)
The snails are happy with whatever the water quality is. I'm scared to test it, because it had been medicated and I've not changed the water since. Though because of recent events, I may have to. Might be interesting.
BUT.. and lord do I ramble.. these new visitors are strange ones. They somewhat resemble slugs, or snails sans shell. They're clearish whitish, with nearly-discernible white organs, and they're all *over* the glass. They're about 1/16 of an inch long, or one millimeter. Those are the biggest, as some are easily half that to microscopic size. There seem to be two stages of this little bugger... a free-swimming (free-sliming?) version, and something that seems to be stationary and attached to the glass. The latter may possibly be some innovative form of algae I'm mis-identifying, though. Who knows.
My very first thought was "..planaria?", pulling back through the centuries to biology class. (Funnily enough, we also studied hydra!) Planaria, if I remember correctly, are cute little cross-eyed flatworms that can be "trained" with light and touch stimuli, and if this is what I have, then I'll let them stick around. Apparently, they can even be trained to go through simple mazes.
Everything I've read says they are carnivores, but that they can live for up to three months without food. I may have to go against my better instincts and toss a few bloodworms or fragment of liver or egg yolk in with them. Just to see what happens. Strict quarantine, nothing moved between that tank and any other. I don't want these guys in other tanks. I'll set up a separate set of equipment for it.
According to what I've read, they are non-parasitic, and it doesn't seem like they could actually hurt fish or snails. I found a really good site about aquatic beasties here.. http://www.fishpondinfo.com/micro.htm This site offers some good control techniques which I may have to employ if the glass starts getting hard to see through. :)
You know, I started writing this asking what they were, but it sounds like I've answered my own question. So I guess my questions to you are...
- Am I probably right in my diagnosis, or is there something else they might be? Could it be some form of the hydra? I'm pretty sure this isn't what snail babies look like. O.O
They look pretty much like what documentation I've seen... IE http://naturalaquariums.com/inverts/worms.html
- Would these be of any danger to fish, directly or indirectly? They seem harmless, if a little dirty. They excrete a slime (so I read) that probably doesn't do the water quality any good. Another site I found says that they're bad for egg-laying fish, as they eat the eggs... I wonder if that means they'll control my snail population? I was looking forward to tiny snailettes. Hmm...
- Would fish or fry eat them, perhaps? Maybe I can just pretend that this... erm.. "mature" tank is a big food culture. Hehe. I've read somewhere that paradise fish eat them, but I'm loathe to stick one of those pretty, huge things in my wonky little tank.
- Am I right in guessing that they, too, hitchhiked in on the java fern I ordered?
- And finally, why are all these wee beasties showing themselves in the five-gallon tank, while the ten-gallon, with plants from the same batch, is pristine as far as I can see? With the hydra I could understand that they'd just be hiding, but these possible-planaria are *EVERYWHERE* in the other tank. Could it be that, because my five-gallon gets a little more sunlight, the algae growth fosters more little animals? Maybe the water quality upset from the medication (Pimafix and Melafix) has put my tank's stats into parameters my aquariums normally aren't? Are the fish in the ten-gallon eating these guys? I've got guppies, a betta, a pleco, and an ADF in there. There's nothing in the 5-gal to decay, not even food now. There would be more of that in the ten-gallon.. ..unless the frog pellets are hanging out down there in the five-gal's gravel, from when the frog was in that tank? *lightbulb over head*
Immediate Help
