What Are These Little Things? Please Help

[hops523]

Hey all, I have a ten gallon tank with some albino and bronze cory catfish. A few days ago when I did a water change I noticed a lot of tiny and skinny worms start floating around. Or at least I think they were worms. They almost looked like micro worms I guess. Now today while I was looking at my tank, I noticed tiny little bug looking things swimming around between the rocks ? They almost look like baby brine shrimp. All I have been feeding the corys are frozen brine shrimp and bloodworms to get them to breed. What can these little things be? How did they get there? Could they be cory catfish fry? Even though I didnt see any eggs at anytime? Actually now that I look at them closer, they do not look like baby brine shrimp, and they do not swim like them either, so I do not know.
Please help

 

[justask]

Hey all, I have a ten gallon tank with some albino and bronze cory catfish. A few days ago when I did a water change I noticed a lot of tiny and skinny worms start floating around. Or at least I think they were worms. They almost looked like micro worms I guess. Now today while I was looking at my tank, I noticed tiny little bug looking things swimming around between the rocks ? They almost look like baby brine shrimp. All I have been feeding the corys are frozen brine shrimp and bloodworms to get them to breed. What can these little things be? How did they get there? Could they be cory catfish fry? Even though I didnt see any eggs at anytime? Actually now that I look at them closer, they do not look like baby brine shrimp, and they do not swim like them either, so I do not know.
Please help

The worms will be Planarium Worms, and the little bugs probably Copepods...usually occur together where over feeding is going on. Common in tanks with Oscars (coz they are such messy eaters), they will also appear in an "under-fed" tank...ie, if all the fish are removed from an established tank & it's left running. Needs a bit of a clean up (even if it doesn't look dirty). They will probably be most obvious in the morning when the light is first switched on. They are really part of the life living in the filter or gravel, but sometimes they "bloom" when the tank is unbalanced. Cut down on the food a bit. They aren't really harmfull, but the Copepods can be an irritant to fish if they become too abundant. Most Gouramis (Trichogaster types) will relish the Planarium Worms.