Pest identification

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PNWaquarist

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These things have been growing all over the sides of my freshwater tank since I began cycling. I'm assuming that they hitchhiked in on one of more of my plants. I can't tell if they're copepods or water fleas, or perhaps something else?

Is there anything that will eat these? My corys and assassin snails don't seem too interested.
 

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Watch your assassin snails, the the probably do take me, you just might not see it. Looks closely for empty shells.
 
Could be, though I haven't seen either of my assassin snails go after these things (which is specifically when I bought them). Perhaps they're getting enough leftover bloodworms and carnivore pellets.

My tank is only 3 dGH, which is a bad environment for snails. So I'm a little surprised that these things keep growing on the glass. It's probably time for me to give the assassins back to the LFS as well.
 
I'll say Pond snail, they are cute and assasins snails eat them. Just give them time. I had an infestations of thoses, then I got an infestations of assasins snails. Now there's only left a small population of assasins and micro ramshorns.

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If you can take a picture of the other side of the shell this would help for better ID.
 
Looks very much to me like a baby pond snail. I'd lay money on it.

I've learned to like my snails. But I did see a drop in the pond snail population when I brought in Laos Pygmy multi striped loaches. That'd require a drive up to Portland to The Wet Spot though! Those tiny loaches only eat the baby ones but are at least quite small in terms of bioload.

Pond snails aren't picky about environment. Mine came from my seeded media, survived a 4ppm ammonia fishless cycle in which I never did a water change ... And then I even tried to kill them by dumping a bunch of carbonated water into the tank.


Sent from my iPhone with three hands tied behind my back.
 
Even very young pond snails can reproduce, so that's why you keep seeing these guys. They're laying eggs. Usually these are very small, clear, firm patches of a jelly like material, and may be on a leaf, the glass, or any other surface. They're hard to see on most surfaces.

The assassins should eventually do away with them, just give them a bit of time. If you're impatient, you can simply crush any you see that are within reach and let them fall to the bottom, where the assassins would most likely consume them.
 
Need a pic of the shell if possible to tell you what kind of snail it is. Looking at the snail from this angle and trying to identify it would be like looking at a single fish scale and trying to tell you what species it is.
 
Thanks for the comments.

I'm not convinced that these are snails and not freshwater limpets. I don't see sacks of eggs anywhere, just these small white plaques on the side of the glass that grow, eventually sprout antennae, and begin moving around *very* slowly. They make snails looks speedy. And I never see them anywhere other than the glass. Then again, I know next to nothing about inverts.

I'll try to get better photos.
 
So you have spots that stay in one place for a long time on the glass then start to crawl around?

Where's a good entomologist when you need one ...




Sent from my iPhone with three hands tied behind my back.
 
It sounds like you might have limpets too, but the initial pic that you posted is a snail, I have some fairly large limpets in one of my tanks, but I've never noticed any of them having antennae.

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Technically they're all gastropoda.. but the limpet like forms are pretty distant from the ones we think of as snails. They do have antennae, but they're small and not often seen.

Given the pic, I think the pic is one of the small pond snails of some type. Most of the ones we think of as FW limpets don't look like the pic and don't have antennae that are nearly so obvious. Many of them have lungs and breathe air, and many have adapted to withstand fairly long periods of drying out too. They're harmless enough, and eat much the same diet as most snails, algae and detritus, etc.
 
Thanks again. I'll let one or two of them grow a little before smashing them with the algae scraper. Perhaps I'll be able to get an ID-able pic.
 
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