Water Fleas

[Elisabeth83]

In my betta Smaragdina tank I have a lot of wood and live plants...some of my fry are surviving on their own and doing really well. I've noticed that last couple of days these tiny little things in the tank about the size of baby brine shrimp. I'm not sure what they are I remember watching a guy at a shop feed his young killifish some fish water fleas and I'm thinking maybe they are those? I'm excited to see them in the tank as it means then the fry have plenty of live foods to eat

These things are cream/white in color and kinda of hop around..well not hop but buzz around the tank pretty fast. And no they are not planaria

edit: These little things are occuring naturally in the tank I've never fed them water fleas.

 

[bunjiweb]

possibly some kind of insect lavae? It's hard to tell without a picture. Probably not bad for your tank, just make sure they dont appear to be trying to attach to your fish at all, do your usual regular water changes and if they are still there in a few months you should worry.

Ben

 

[CFC]

They are known as rotifers and are perfectly harmless, any fry in the tank will use them as an additional food source.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I remember a loooong time ago when my pearl danio fry first hatched out i had difficulty in not overfeeding them since although there were tons of them but very, very tiny little things. Anyways i overfed them to make sure they all got fed but i also did almost daily water changes/substrate cleaning sessions to make sure no rotting/uneaten food was left in the tank.
Well one week i could do daily tank cleaning sessions from being ill and i started to get little critters exactly like the ones you mentioned and i was wondering wether you have been overfeeding your fish at all? Apparently these sorts of critters are usually present in the water but get eaten by the fish, when you give your fish too much food though these critters get a chance to thrive.

 

[Elisabeth83]

I don't think I am overfeeding as it's just the 2 Smaragadinas in the tank. I've only seen a couple of these small things though so I don't think it's a bad water quality issue or an overfeeding issue. The Smaragdinas are spawning like crazy..never looked better. I don't add any extra food for the fry either..they are just living on whatever they find in the tank.

Thanks CFC for the indentification..it's nice to know what they are