Dr Blue Balls
Aquarium Advice Newbie
My tank is infested with these bugs. They're everywhere! And clogging up my filter too. What are these and are they bad?
When you get an explosion of them, it's usually from overfeeding or lots of food available such as biofilm so they have plenty of nutrition to multiply with. I would not stop feeding the fish as they may start going after your regular shrimp but definitely cut back on the amount of food you feed at each feeding or leave available for them to eat " at a later time". Just a lack of food for them can help reduce their numbers.We've narrowed it down to ostracods (seed shrimp). And I've done other things to clear up my tank water- I thought they were causing the issue but that wasn't the case. I've got lots of sunray guppies in there, and just added kuhli loaches, hillstream loaches, and galaxy rasboras. From what I've read, they all like to eat these little guys. Not sure why they're thriving though. Should I stop feeding the fish so they can move their focus onto the ostracods?