Hitchhikers In Your Aquariums

[eschaton]

The other weekend, I noticed a small number of hydra in my tank. At the time I was concerned, so I went to the LFS and he gave me a pill he swore wouldn't hurt anything besides the hydra. I freaked during work monday because I read that anti-hydra medicines were generally fatal to other inverts, but it seemed that my LFS did in fact know what they were saying when I got home, with all the hydras dead, and everything else a-ok.

Anyway, the more I read, the more sad I was I made the decision. I was worried they would take over the gravel, cause fish to avoid hanging by the bottom, and be hamful overall, but I guess they are in fact harmless to anything bigger than a fry, and generally stay in small numbers. The cluster of them on my vertical rock looked quite pleasant in fact; like some sort of freshwater soft coral.

Anyway, while marine tanks commonly get weird hitchhikers, it seems a rarity (outside of the usual pest snails) for those of us in the freshwater community. I'm wondering if anyone else has seen something odder than a snail or a planaria mysteriously show up in their tank one day.

 

[ImperfectFaerie]

Well, on the pleasant side- Gus the guppy tagged along when we brought home some kuhli loaches. You could barely see him in the bag but we put him in a bowl with an airstone and java moss for a few days until we got a breeder net, now the spoiled little thing has a 10gal all to himself. Starting to get old enough that we're starting to think it might be a she.

 

[linda1503]

I bought some black tetras a while back and had a little hitchhiker, we named him'he who shouldn't be here!' We hadn't a clue what he was until he grew up and we realised he was a pearl danio. He's still living quite happily with the zebra danios in my sons tank.

 

[Mad Duff]

A few years ago a local shop were selling off all the bogwood that was in their display tanks so I purchased a couple of pieces at a very good price, when I got home I put them straight in to an empty tank with the intention of cleaning them the next morning (I was going to leave them in the bag overnight). Next morning I was sure that I had seen movement in the tank so I lifted the bogwood to find two Clown Plecs

 

[Callum]

lol clown plecs lol thats a fairly expensive hitchhiker. When i bought a guppy from pets at home ( a long time ago) another guppy jumped into the fish bag and the staff were too stupid to seperate them.

 

[wendywc]

I once bought some driftwood off the shelf and took it home and decided to boil it. As I was doing other errands around the house, I stopped and thought "what's that smell? kinda like meat cooking". Anyway, I check on the driftwood and a couple dozen crickets were floating in the pot. I couldn't believe all those guys were hiding in it. Yep, pretty sick.