Mayfly Larvae

[chocolicious]

I was just cleaning out my tank and as i lifted a pipe up to clean underneath i noticed a wriggling creature emerge from it, I immediately sucked it up through panic. I left the crap settle in the bucket i then netted it up and noticed it had a 2 pronged tail and 6 legs it was also long and could also crawl.

I looked on google for some information and it is what we think seems to be a mayfly larvae.

How would this get about getting into the tank? We clean the tank every week sometimes more and we clean under the pipe we found it every other water change.

Anyone had experience with this before or know information on them

How did this get in?
Could there be more?
Will they kill my fish? (I have around 30 fry in that tank.)
How do i prevent it?

And any other useful info will help also!

Thanks a lot!

Wish i could keep it as a pet but my girlfriend is freaked out.

 

[chocolicious]

Just emptied the bucket down the toilet and noticed the bucket is full of wriggling little brown things , possibly more larvae just smaller. Will aquarium salt get rid of these? I really don't understand where these have come from. I'm really worried they will affect my fish.


I am definately changing my tank to sand after this !

 

[chocolicious]

bump

 

[drobbyb]

Any medicine that contains copper with sort them out for you, as well as any snails or shrimps.

 

[silverrabbit]

They're not a prob with bigger fish, but I think they can eat your fry, so good decision to get rid of methinks. I had a couple in my goldie tank last year, they really freaked me out!!

 

[chocolicious]

They're not a prob with bigger fish, but I think they can eat your fry, so good decision to get rid of methinks. I had a couple in my goldie tank last year, they really freaked me out!!

Yeah freaked me out when i first saw the big one , then when i saw more in the bucket i knew we had a problem. Took all the fry out the tank last night , felt quite bad mum was going crazy but had to be done. Will try find a copper medicine , bound to have one have collected quite a few medicines over time lol.