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Archived message board.
Weird inhabitant
Badmans Tropical Fish Message Center: archive:
Weird inhabitant
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cq
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Tuesday,
July 03, 2001 - 12:22 pm
Noticed
something weird in my tank today as I was feeding. I noticed one
of my fish going after what looked like a really tiny piece of flake.
I was amazed to find that the "flake" avoided the fish and
darted away. THis happened a couple more times until it dove down
into the substrate. Upon closer inspection, it looked like a really
tiny white speck in sort of a triangular shape. Does anyone have
a clue as to what this might be?
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peter
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Tuesday,
July 03, 2001 - 05:16 pm
have
you ever watched or read "Horton Hears a Who"?
If you turn off your filter and stay quiet for a while, you may
be able to hear them faintly chanting, " We're here! We're
here! We're here!"
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jeff
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Wednesday,
July 04, 2001 - 12:01 am
cq..flat
with kinda arrowhead shape head?..could be planaria...feeding on
waste in substrate..
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cq
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Wednesday,
July 04, 2001 - 09:35 am
Thanks
Jeff. Are they dangerous to fish? Should I be doing anything to
get rid of these things? I noticed more today
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Kick
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Wednesday,
July 04, 2001 - 09:44 am
Testing
to see if I can post here. I can't seem to post on any of the
other topics but this went the first time so will try to help here.
If you have live plants, they may have entered the tank in this
way. They will not hurt anything as long as their numbers are kept
in check. Siphoning the gravel surface, "underfeeding" the
fish or getting a gourami to eat them will help reduce them. I don't
know of a product right now that will kill them, but maybe Jeff
will have an idea.
Overfeeding and poor maintenance of a tank are the reasons these
critters develop and mulitply.
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jeff
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Wednesday,
July 04, 2001 - 11:21 am
cq..you
didn't confirm that's what I described..if it is planaria(most
likely)..as kick said usually overfeeding is the problem..simply
stop feedin for a few days of try the blue or 3 spot gourami as
kick suggested..
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cq
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Wednesday,
July 04, 2001 - 02:28 pm
I
really don't know Jeff. How big do planaria get? These things
look like little triangular shaped specks. I did a little research
on planaria on the net and the pictures I saw don't really correspond
to what's in my tank. They literally are little tiny specks.
I will keep a close watch and let you know if I see anything new.
At any rate, thanks for all your help
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jeff
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Wednesday,
July 04, 2001 - 03:56 pm
cq..no
prob..I just wanted to be sure is all..planaria can get to about
1/2" long..if you can just suck some out of your substrate and
look at them through a magnifying glass if you can..then we will
know for sure
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Kick
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Thursday,
July 05, 2001 - 10:01 am
It
may not be planaria or maybe they are in the juvenile form right
now and eyeballing them can't tell you exactly what they are
yet. As Jeff mentioned, if you can catch one, look under mag glass
and describe further, you many have some kind of "bug" instead.
At any rate, if it "avoided" the fish, maybe the fish you
have in the tank will eventually eat them. But I would hold back
on the feeding some to diminish their food supply. If you think
planaria is not what you have, email me and I can send you some
pictures and maybe you can decide from there what is swimming around
"unwanted" in your tank.
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Anonymous
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Friday,
July 06, 2001 - 01:26 pm
It
sounds like it could be a sea monkey (juvenile ghost shrimp).
Do you keep any shrimp? They make good food if that's what it
is.
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cq
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Friday,
July 06, 2001 - 01:50 pm
Don't
keep any shrimp. I have been keeping my eyes peeled for these things
the last couple of days and have seen nothing. Maybe my platies
are eating whatever they are (God knows they eat everything
else that gets in their way). BTW, I now have a tank full of
platies: 3 originals, 3 juveniles that survived from the last batch
of fry, and around 10-15 new fry and one of my females is pregnant
again! Very overwhelming. Should have done more research on livebearers
before I bought them. I either need to find a fish that thinks little
platies make a great afternoon snack or find someone to take all
these fish off my hands when they grow up!!
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cq
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Friday,
July 06, 2001 - 01:50 pm
On
the bright side, looks like all the posting problems are fixed.
No problems today or yesterday
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joycedonley
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Friday,
July 06, 2001 - 10:49 pm
Cq
sometimes the parents will eat the fry. Are you saving them all
or are your platy just being 'nice' parents? I know if you
had swordtails in there they would chow them down. Platy are less
likely to eat fry than most of the other livebearers.
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