Parasites???

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millipede

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Jan 6, 2003
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Arkansas
:?: I recently added several guppies, two otocinclus, and two plants to my tank. One night, after I had those for a while, I was staring at my tank when I noticed some spots on the side of the glass. When I took a closer look I noticed they moved. Then I watched longer and saw some of them swimming around. I've been doing a lot of searching on the net and I'm not sure I'm satisfied with the info I've found. They are just little specs about the size of a period (.) or so. They spend a lot of time on the glass or on my plants. When I have described them to a few people they suggested they might be fish lice so I looked that sort of thing up. I've been looking stuff up and watching my tank for at least a week now and what I have noticed is that I never see these things on my fish. I look real long and hard and I only see them on the glass or on my plants,especially decaying leaves, and swimming around. Does anyone have any idea what I'm dealing with. I'm not as worried as I was because like I said they don't seem to bother my fish....... :?:
 
I'm by no means a plant expert, but as an educated guess, it sounds like it could well be a set of live bacteria that has entered your aquarium through the plants you added. Have you added any sort of plant pesticide killer or something similar at all ?
 
Are you near a university? I'd take some samples (H2O, plant) in water to one of the science labs (microbiology, invertebrate zoology) and ask them to ID them for you. It could be any kind of microorganism. Mantis
 
parasites?

There were more of them today. They still don't seem to be bothering my fish... Just seems weird. I may try taking them to a nearby university. I wanted to look at them under a microscope myself but don't have one and I'm on a tight budget. And no, I have not added anything to kill them yet. Since they have not seemed to do any damage I have not considered it a complete priority. I do want to get rid of them but don't like adding chemicals unless I have to. I was hoping to find a fish or something that might want to eat them. I'll keep searching...
 
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