Over population of maybe water fleas?

[elizae]

I have a 40 gallon aquarium with 2 angelfish and a nerite snail. Tank has been running this setup for a couple months now. A couple weeks ago, I noticed these brown dots on the glass, and saw they were moving. They sat at the water surface and down by the sand. I tried to google them but I couldn’t find anything like these, my best guess is they’re water fleas. Extremely tiny perfectly round brown bugs. Thousands of them now. They will stick to the angelfish and irritate them.

They’re so small the angels have no interest in eating them. They bounce around in the water in “jumps” which is what made me think water fleas but they don’t really look the same from pictures I’ve seen. Besides the stray few sticking onto the angels and being flicked off, they don’t seem to be causing any problems. Fish still eating happily. Water parameters are normal

I want them gone though. Water changes, gravel vac, and increasing surface agitation has done nothing to get rid of them. I don’t know what to do or what these are or where they came from. Suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Tanks have had nothing new for months. Help?

 

[Aiken Drum]

Try not feeding your fish for a few days, they might start taking more interest in them once they get hungry.

Ones on the surface can be dealt with by the hot air from a hair dryer.

 

[elizae]

I’ll try that. Here’s what they are, i was barely able to get the camera to focus on it.

It’s currently in a plastic bottle cap in my palm for comparison. it’s about as big as the ridges on the cap. I’m not sure if my identification of water fleas is correct.

At first I thought they were poop particles but they move in such a way it’s obvious that they’re not. If I could catch them they’d be great fry food for fry I don’t have lol.

There’s also these tiny white things that look like “fry” about the same size as whatever these are, but nowhere near as many. My only thought is that when I went on vacation the tank was fed too much and they popped up?

 

[Swampman]

Have you fed the fish live daphnia? Those are called water fleas. I can't figure out how else you got them. Very interesting.

 

[rlederer]

The dark spot? Never saw Daphnia that color. They are usually a translucent tan color.

 

[elizae]

No live foods, just pellets and frozen in that tank. I saw a video where someone called them some sort of shrimp Things that eat detritus? I’m not sure. This tank has been running for 6 years, never had live food, and no new plants in years, and they’ve only just now made themselves known.

I cut down on pellets for the angels, feeding them one piece at a time to make sure it was all eaten and it seemed to have reduced their numbers. Water changes did nothing to dent the population. I rinsed out the filter housing and swished around the floss and so so so many dead and alive ones came out.

 

[avioli]

looks like they could be seed shrimp