Rube_Goldfish Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 I have a planted 10 gallon tank with a half dozen Neocaridina davidii, some bladder snails, and a very young ramshorn snail. The filter and substrate have been running in one form or another and in one tank or another for months now, bit the hardscape and about half of the plants are new. Since there are no fish putting pressure on them, I see some very small organisms moving around in the tank. I see references to copepods, seed shrimp, scuds, isopods, rhabdocoela, and all manner of microfauna, but I never really know what I'm looking at when I see small things moving around in my tanks. Is there a "beginner's guide" or an "illustrated guide" to microfauna in freshwater aquariums anyone can recommend that I might start learning about these things? 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 On 3/18/2024 at 8:47 PM, Rube_Goldfish said: I have a planted 10 gallon tank with a half dozen Neocaridina davidii, some bladder snails, and a very young ramshorn snail. The filter and substrate have been running in one form or another and in one tank or another for months now, bit the hardscape and about half of the plants are new. Since there are no fish putting pressure on them, I see some very small organisms moving around in the tank. I see references to copepods, seed shrimp, scuds, isopods, rhabdocoela, and all manner of microfauna, but I never really know what I'm looking at when I see small things moving around in my tanks. Is there a "beginner's guide" or an "illustrated guide" to microfauna in freshwater aquariums anyone can recommend that I might start learning about these things? I’ve not found a comprehensive guide. I look each thing up. The closest I’ve found to a list Carolina biological care sheets for the critters they sell. Those also include terrestrials though. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rube_Goldfish Posted March 19 Author Share Posted March 19 On 3/19/2024 at 7:24 AM, Guppysnail said: I’ve not found a comprehensive guide. I look each thing up. The closest I’ve found to a list Carolina biological care sheets for the critters they sell. Those also include terrestrials though. Thanks! (Sorry, out of reactions for the day!) Carolina Biologicals sounds like a good resource. I'm normally pretty good about looking up individual things but I've been at a bit of a loss on how to search "small white speck that moves kind of funny" and they're too small to get photos of to show and ask here, at least with my cell phone camera. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 Your small funny moving speck search videos of daphnia or copepod. The great thing about the forum is it connects folks so between all of us we can usually hit an answer for almost any questions. I have some larger seed shrimp scurrying about my melini Cory hatch ring. I’ll get some video of those for you. If my new purple pencil fish have not wiped them out already I had a fabulous copepod colony I’ll try to video for you. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schuyler Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 This guy has a pretty good video where he breaks down most of the things you'll see in an aquarium: 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little Guys Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 OMG - Watch this video and you will always quarantine your plants. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rube_Goldfish Posted March 19 Author Share Posted March 19 On 3/19/2024 at 1:13 PM, Little Guys said: OMG - Watch this video and you will always quarantine your plants. I have such a mixed feeling about it. I've pulled a bunch of damselfly and dragonfly nymphs, but otherwise I've gotten pretty lucky with the small hitchhikers, and I think they contribute to the overall health and balance of a tank (and provide grazing opportunities when I miss a feeding day). That said, yeah, there are absolutely some little beasties I don't want in any of my tanks! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 @Rube_Goldfish at the beginning of this video behind the two new hatch melini Cory fry to the right are some of my seed shrimp. You can’t see them up close but you can see their movements. If you blow the video up full screen you can see the fairly well 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rube_Goldfish Posted March 20 Author Share Posted March 20 On 3/20/2024 at 8:17 AM, Guppysnail said: @Rube_Goldfish at the beginning of this video behind the two new hatch melini Cory fry to the right are some of my seed shrimp. You can’t see them up close but you can see their movements. If you blow the video up full screen you can see the fairly well If I'm looking at the correct things here then the small white specks I have are not seed shrimp, because I see them swimming in a smooth but somewhat erratic way, as if they can swim smoothly but they just don't know where they want to go. But they don't really "walk". But also, love cory fry! Very cute, and thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biotope Biologist Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 The problem with a comprehensive guide to identifying micro organisms in your tank is that this forum has members spanning the globe. As does the hobby. Not only that but even though many of our members are NA, fish plants and substrates come from all over. And if that wasn’t complicated enough there are hundreds of species of flying insects especially in the warm months that sneak into our homes climb into our tanks and lay eggs… When I or someone else identifies a microfauna we can only guess at the genus or even group of critters it might belong to. Blood worms for example refer to something like 100+ different species of midges! And even more midge larvae aren’t red 😬 Anyway I hope you enjoyed my TED talk and delightfully unhelpful answer haha 2 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rube_Goldfish Posted March 20 Author Share Posted March 20 On 3/20/2024 at 11:09 AM, Biotope Biologist said: The problem with a comprehensive guide to identifying micro organisms in your tank is that this forum has members spanning the globe. As does the hobby. Not only that but even though many of our members are NA, fish plants and substrates come from all over. And if that wasn’t complicated enough there are hundreds of species of flying insects especially in the warm months that sneak into our homes climb into our tanks and lay eggs… When I or someone else identifies a microfauna we can only guess at the genus or even group of critters it might belong to. Blood worms for example refer to something like 100+ different species of midges! And even more midge larvae aren’t red 😬 Anyway I hope you enjoyed my TED talk and delightfully unhelpful answer haha Haha, okay, good points! I guess I was just, I don't know, jealous? That's probably not the right word, but I see people confidently say things about the scuds or the copepods in their tank and I'm over here saying "huh, I've never seen a sesame seed swim that well before"! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doktor zhivago Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 On 3/20/2024 at 10:41 AM, Rube_Goldfish said: If I'm looking at the correct things here then the small white specks I have are not seed shrimp, because I see them swimming in a smooth but somewhat erratic way, as if they can swim smoothly but they just don't know where they want to go. But they don't really "walk". But also, love cory fry! Very cute, and thank you! Copepods have a reflex that makes them 'jump' to avoid predators. Usually that's the guys you see swimming like they're drunk. They'll have a twin tail of their egg sacks once they get a little bigger. Here's one from my tank: 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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