Midges

[Crayola105]

What are midges

 

[MoonstruckMuse]

I was under the impression that midges don't breed unless in stagnant/dirtyish water. Supposedly your water shouldn't be all that dirty, but water changes never hurt. As for the stagnant-ness, perhaps more surface agitation would disrupt these little buggers for a bit.

Rinse out the filter and everything else with a bit of tank water as you would do a normal cleaning. Hopefully this'll remove the worst of it, and then your fish can take care of the rest.

But... I would agree that you are overstocked, even when you move the fish around. Iridescent sharks grow quite big and the BKG will be decent sized too - they both need larger then a 55g when fullgrown if I remember correctly. The sharks can get awfully fussy and territorial as well - my old RTS blinded then killed my 3-spot gourami. And then there's a lot of fish fighting for dominance of the bottom with a pleco, 2 cats, and the loach. =/
Btw, my pleco was tolerant of snails at first, but ended up having a lovely apple snail dinner one day, so you may want to keep an eye out for that. The sharks & gourami may also pick at their stalks, heh.

 

[DevUK]

What about sealing the top of the tank so they can't get in or out. Do the water changes as suggested and keep the top of the tank covered. After a few weeks of this they'll die off won't they?

 

[three-fingers]

What are midges

think of a midge as a mosquito.....but smaller and more annoying .

They are small blood sucking flies.

 

[showjyr]

I was under the impression that midges don't breed unless in stagnant/dirtyish water. Supposedly your water shouldn't be all that dirty, but water changes never hurt. As for the stagnant-ness, perhaps more surface agitation would disrupt these little buggers for a bit.

Rinse out the filter and everything else with a bit of tank water as you would do a normal cleaning. Hopefully this'll remove the worst of it, and then your fish can take care of the rest.

But... I would agree that you are overstocked, even when you move the fish around. Iridescent sharks grow quite big and the BKG will be decent sized too - they both need larger then a 55g when fullgrown if I remember correctly. The sharks can get awfully fussy and territorial as well - my old RTS blinded then killed my 3-spot gourami. And then there's a lot of fish fighting for dominance of the bottom with a pleco, 2 cats, and the loach. =/
Btw, my pleco was tolerant of snails at first, but ended up having a lovely apple snail dinner one day, so you may want to keep an eye out for that. The sharks & gourami may also pick at their stalks, heh.

More than enough surface agitation, the types of midge we have in this area(atleast most of them) are the non biting type. They make a tube-like cacoon in fast moving streams, and catch food that passes by. This is the reason they love the filter tubes and filter. I'm trying sealing the tank already, but i still have to feed and change water. It only takes one female to start the whole process over and after all i never saw one adult before all this started. It was in the sub zero temps around here at the time. About the being overstocked i'm making plans to buy a large house this coming summer. As soon as possible i will be setting up a tank in the 100 to 200 gallon range or maybe larger. It will bring my total number of tanks up to 4. All of my larger fish are still small, excluding my BGK who is about 7 inches so i have a little time to play with the details.

 

[Invader Xan]

Midge larvae... aren't bloodworm a kind of midge larvae?

You could try getting a few more predatory inverts to help alleviate your problem, if not necessarily solve it. A handful of ghost shrimp might be good at picking them off. Perhaps even (I apologise in advance ) a couple of triops...

In the meantime, have you tried using a syphon tube to vacuum up a few of them?

 

[DevUK]

In the meantime, have you tried using a syphon tube to vacuum up a few of them?

Perhaps even a battery powered vac, might work better, so you're not dropping your water level too much etc..

 

[showjyr]

Yes they are a type of midge larvae. I've tried a Python and even a smaller syphon with more suction but they're hard to get to and the little cacoon thing makes them very difficult to suck off anything. I've gotten ghost shrimp in the past but my BGK makes quick work of them. My incandesent also made a tasty meal of one or two. What are triops?

 

[Invader Xan]

Triops (sometimes called tadpole shrimp) are a primitive kind of crustacean, a bit like sea monkeys, only with attitude. I've heard of them being used to treat pest problems, because they're constantly hungry and will eat pretty much anything smaller than they are. Plus, they don't sleep. I also read somewhere that they've been used to help reduce mosquito larvae problems in the past. Drawbacks being they can attack their tank mates or get eaten fairly easily (they're not too bright).
If your ghosts didn't last, I doubt a triops would either. Just a thought...