Help Identifying organisms

[Polemos]

Just wanted to find out exactly what is in my tank. I thought the smaller dots were copepods but in the second image the larger white dot is for sure a copepod.  Then the worm looking one in the first image has me stumped. I know a lot of these things are great for tanks I just want to make sure I have nothing bad in there as well.

[Irene]

Hmm, it's kinda hard to tell but it looks like the little detritus worms I get in my shrimp tanks. Pretty harmless and good live food for fish.

[Polemos]

On 12/27/2021 at 4:26 PM, Irene said:

Hmm, it's kinda hard to tell but it looks like the little detritus worms I get in my shrimp tanks. Pretty harmless and good live food for fish.

Perfect it's going to be a shrimp tank, right now its going through its cycle (about a month in now) once it has finished ill be adding cherry shrimp. They probably came in on some of the plants I bought that were in a shrimp tank at the store.

[Colu]

Just a word of caution it could be planaria worms that can harmful in a  shrimp tank

[Polemos]

On 12/27/2021 at 7:16 PM, Colu said:

Just a word of caution it could be planaria worms that can harmful in a  shrimp tank

I read up on those but cannot tell if they are or not, I can't see the arrow head just a straight line. I've read up on de-wormer but the one everyone recommends us clout but seems to be unavailable. I have nothing in the tank now so this would be the perfect time to rid the tank of anything.

[813aquatics]

I think it’s just detritus worms and copepods. You specifically mentioned nothing is in the tank so that would make sense, as the only time I’ve ever experienced it in numbers was when I had a plant trimmings 2.5gal with a piece og mopani in it. There were all sorts of little creatures, and I never fed the tank theyd just sustain off decaying plants.

My fish will definitetly eat the worms and the copepods will probably go away once you introduce resource competition from fish and such. 
 

 

 

Edited December 28, 2021 by 813aquatics

[Gator]

I agree with @Colu that the worm may be Planaria and if so, it could be problematic, I've never had them so I can't say how to get rid of them, maybe a med for parasites. Copepods on the other hand are a good thing and their eggs can be found in flake fish foods though we can't see them without a microscope. To give you an idea how good they are, in 2004 I spent 3 weeks in a hospital for bilateral pneumonia and almost died, when I got home, I found that I had lost no fish, but I had a lot of algae to deal with. I don't have or want an automatic feeder, and I don't trust anyone to feed my fish for me because I don't want them overfed, so the fish had to be eating the Copepods to survive. The first thing I did when I got home was to feed my fish a flake food, I don't know if my fish could have eaten all of the available Copepods or not, but I don't think it hurt anything to put more eggs in my aquarium.

[Guppysnail]

Looks like some rhabdocoela, detritus worm and copepods. All entirely harmless and dynamite live food for small fish as well as environmentally enriching to provide the hunt. These are notoriously present in shrimp tanks that have no fish to predate upon them. Stole a pic from the net so you can see the clear difference between planarian on the left and rhabdocoela on the right. Best of luck i wish my microfauna would thrive to that degree but my fish are 🐷🤣