What's Living In My Filter Water?!

[ska41]

OK, cleaned my canister filter for the first time last night and kept the bucket of aquarium water that I rinsed everything in. I let it settle overnight (lots of brown guck) and checked it this morning before dumping it. Eyeballs are lookin' back at me! I know what guppy and platy fry look like, but these guys are smaller and so thin! Big eyeballs. Where the heck did they come from?! Also, under the magnifying glass I see lots of tinsey little white shrimpy-looking things swimming around. I've put home-raised brine shrimp in the tank before, not for weeks though, but these guys are smaller than baby brine shrimp. Are they just microscopic ickies of some kind? Could they be ghost or cherry shrimp fry? And where did Mr. Eyeballs come from? An egg on a new plant??

Sure glad I read on the board to check the water before dumping!!!

 

[thegnu]

hi,
thats interesting, i never thought of looking in the water. never actually heard of this before. when i rinse out my filters sponges the water is so dark and filthy that i wonder if it would ever clear. i guess it would.
are their any fins attached to the eyeballs. the shrimp fry, could be i know nothing about shrimp other than bbs

 

[fuzzyferret]

Whenever I change sponges in my canister filter, I ALWAYS check in the bottom - I empty this out and rake around, and find baby bristlenose, tiny yellow labidachromis caeruleus, etc.
These are tiny fry that get sucked into the filter and manage to survive in the bottom couple of inches.

Last week I stripped a tank down and emptied the canister filter of the media - leaving the canister on the table waiting to be cleaned.
A few hours later, picked this up to find a yellow lab in the bottom, one and a half inches long!!
How long had he been in there???
Because the water was now cold, I had to float him in the cold water in a plastic container in one of my warm tanks - he gradually warmed up and now he is practising to be a fish again!

Please - always check the 'gunk' in the bottom - you never know.....

 

[billpayers]

My cousin who had Kribensis bred in his tank, One day he was cleaning out his filter to find 15 large Kribensis living ... They survived due to air circulation and a nest full of bloodworms in there. So definately check out your tank.

 

[ska41]

Yes, "Mr. Eyeballs" has fins. He's now living a life of luxury in my hospital tank. Can't wait to see what he grows up to be!

 

[fishboy619]

please reply back to what he is?, im intrested myself, good luck

 

[MoMa]

this thread soooo needs pictures!

 

[mommyof2bettas]

What does it look like?

 

[Marshall..]

It is great to hear when so many people attempt to breed fish and fail that you have accidentally bred one of your fish(whatever it is!)
glad you rescued them.My THREE clown loach lived in my jewel filter for a while.

 

[aquaticadmirer]

this thread soooo needs pictures!

Agreed!

 

[OohFeeshy]

Could well be danio fry. They breed like rabbits and have pretty small fry.

 

[ska41]

Looks like OohFeeshy is going to win the guessing game! "Mr. Eyeballs" is getting bigger every day and I can now see that he's red - just like 2 of the Glofish/Zebra Danios in my tank. One of them is obviously his mom. Who knew?! For some reason, I thought Glofish are sterile. Danio fry sure are small little suckers! Thanks for the revelation, OohFeeshy! A baby Glofish.......

 

[woogie]

How odd, exactly the same thing happend to me, i left the bucket of mucky filter water
out overnight (not for any reason other than lazyness!) and as i was starting to tip the
contents of said bucket down the toilet, i saw six glinting little eyes staring at me, i scooped them
out with an old glass and now have 3 more glofish happily swimming around with mum and dad!
I always check the water now, found a zebra danio last time, a good few weeks old but it was dead unfortunatly!
Oh well, you live and learn.

 

[Amunet]

Lol.. that's hilarious. But yeah... danios will breed like there is no tomorrow. I've stopped checking my bucket after I vacuum the gravel cause there won't be any room in the tank for any other fish if I keep saving all the fry I come across. I already have 3 in a breeders net that are growing nicely and will soon be in the hospital tank so they can have a bit more room

I remember the very first time I saw what I had thought was a bug swimming at the top of my aquarium. Poor thing never had a chance and got gobbled up by it's parents.

You gotta post pics of your baby!

Here are some of mine heh

This shows the 3 that lived and are growing pretty slowly. Really want to get them into the quarantine/hospital tank asap.

And here is a pic of the very first one that I actually scooped out when I finally realized that it was a fish and not a bug larvae

And the little fella floating in a ziplock bag with the danios checking it out. If you look closely you can see the fry heh

 

[fishboy619]

good pics, when ever i see anything, im too fasanated to take my eyes of it and never remember to grab the camera.