Help please urgent !

[gooner]

We have a problem which we need fast help with the picture on here is our bogwood in our 3 ft tank which we have two albino bn's and a L128 blue phantom but this problem is all the more worrying because we also have two very small bn fry in there too they only hatched a couple of days ago.

We discovered today the bogwood has these little white spots all over the top of it and on closer inspection they are moving like little bugs they are smaller than pin heads but there are lots of them i had not noticed them before and just to make matters worse i have also noticed the same on the gravel but they look black on the gravel.

Thankfully none of the fish look affected in anyway at the moment but i really need to get this sorted before they do.

Does anyone know what this is and how bad a problem is it ?

Do i take the bogwood out completely because all the fish hide under it and i dont want to stress them out and there is the fry to think about will they cope with a big water change and gravel vac ??

I dont really know what to now i dont want to lose any of the fish its unbelievable our first fry and now we have this problem :cry:

PLEASE PLEASE HELP

Gooner and Bubbles

 

[thegeeman]

Dont panic Gooner

Its more than likely Planaria or the other one Doodles mentioned. I am pretty sure it stems from over feeding or at least waste food lying about.

It might even be baby snails. My Assassins leave little white eggs all over the place.

Someone will be along soon to other more advice but like I said I dont think you have reason to freak out

Cheers

thegeeman

 

[Irene0100]

hi, if they were going to affect the fish you would have seen it by now.
I suspect some type of mite or snail - can you look close at them, magnifying glass, and see if can see legs on them or anything to help identify them.
you dont mention any thing else in the tank? eg any ditherfish or cories? if you have any small tetra or similar from another tank try adding a few - they will most probably eat them if they are planaria or similar organisms. (dont add platties or mollies - they will eat the bn fry) most people dont get these as fish eat any before they are seen. I expect you have introduced them from water or plant added recently to the tank?
camera with macro facility would be great to get close photo?

 

[Doodles]

I got loads of these in a tank that i kept my L001 in when he was ill, they were white/grey looking, they are from overfeeding as he wouldnt eat anything and eventually died. Water changes help but if you don't cut back feeding then they multiply again pretty quick. Also any meds i tried on the L001 didnt kill the bugs including fluby 15%. He wasn't bothered by them though even though they crawled on him sometimes.

 

[gooner]

Thanks for the replys

I did have 7 neon tetras 3 glowlight tetras and 4 harlequin rasboras in there until last night and i didn't even think that since we took them out these things have turned up ! :wb: :wb:

I am panicking because we have never had any kind of fry before and only 2 have hatched and i dont really want our first little ones to perish to something that could be easy avoided, which is why i removed the dither fish i saw how small the fry were and thought the dither fish could fit them in their mouth and eat them so removed them :wb::wb:

I'm sure i didn't panic this bad when bubbles was expecting our daughter :lol::lol:

I don't have anything strong enough to magnify these white and black dot things they are very small :dk::dk:

I am going to do a small water change and a bit of careful gravel cleaning and maybe put the dither fish back in a couple days will this be ok or will any of the dithers try and eat the fry ? :dk:

I am keeping my fingers crossed that this is nothing too serious but all fish are fine at the moment even the fry seem unaffected :thumbup:

 

[Guest]

Ok sounds like a slight over feeding....simple to fix.

stop feeding as much...but still feed just cut down a little...

change the lighting cycle.... put it on an hour later and turn off an hour earlier.

up the temp by one or two degrees for a day.

it turns out that your beasties could have been there all along...only the tetra's would have ate them.

plus If you have had fish dying in the tank....then chances are the protein from the dead fish would have an adverse effect (ammonia) and make a perfect home for the beasties.

dont try medicating....would be pointless.

 

[Irene0100]

sounds like you should put some dither fish back! those wont hurt th Bs.
I have had platies attack them but I keep tetra and harlequins in my breeding tanks and never seen them go for fry.
Frist Bn babies are often unsucessful (infertile) so to have 2 is good. they will lay again soon.

 

[Bwhiskered]

Try some very small cories in the tank they will usually clean things up in a very short time.

 

[Irene0100]

yes, someone has found harlequins to be risky, but cories are great! -some species grow quite big but small ones like pandas are great, and fun to watch.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Sound like Ostracods (seed shrimps), so basically a Daphnia in a shell. I get them a lot in all sorts of containers with water in them, they can produce a cyst that resists drying so often I've added water to a bucket or similar and a week later it's full of them.

Have a look here: <http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/indexmag.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artoct01/hwdaphnia.html> well worth a read.

Some references say fish don't like them to eat, but that's not what I've found.

cheers Darrel