copepods?

[Rachelinwy]

Hi everyone

I seem to have a whole bunch of copepods in one of my tanks. This tank has two plants and a snail, so I'm wondering how these little guys showed up. Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[Devilishturtles]

Plants can bring in a lot of cool things, including copepods and insect larvae, depending on where they were gotten from. Here is a cool link that shows just pictures of 2 common ones, but there are a lot of different species that can appear. Click on the links to ostrapods and shrimp in there too to see more pictures.

http://www.micrographia.com/specbiol/crustac/copepo/cope0100.htm

 

[toddnbecka]

Actually, an abundance of copepods is an indication of excellent water quality. They die first if something is wrong...