Worms In My Live Daphnia

[carrera]

I just bought some live daphnia from my LFS for my betta and have noticed several worms amongst them and was wondering if anyone had any idea what they were?

They are bigger than the daphnia, about 1cm long, 2mm thin and transparent - I can see what looks like a brain at its head end. It's hard to establish much more detail than that unfortunatley as they are very few amongst the many daphnia and are quite hard to see.

My LFS is usually very good and I wouldn't expect anything dodgy from them, but I just want to check before feeding my betta.

Cheers.

 

[smegforbrains]

I should imagine it is some kind of larvae, whether worm or not. I don't see that your Betta would be too bothered by it.

Try dropping just one in right by his nose at dinner time and see if he eats it. If not, remove it and set about the task of taking out all the others with a pair of tweezers

 

[Jallen]

I had one about a month ago in my daphnia and it did this wierd convulsive springing movement, and it fits your exact description. I was too slow to get it out but theres been no problems, and this must have been a month ago.

And I have no idea what it is.

 

[joecoral]

When we get live daphnia in work theres usually quite a lot of other things in there; water boatmen, what I assume are mayfly larva etc as well as the daphnia. Its all good tho

 

[carrera]

Thanks for the assurances. It's not prob anymore anyway, as I tried to feed him some daphnia and he either couldn't see them or wasn't interested Silly boy..

Gonna stick to bloodworm in future as I know he likes those. This is what I get for going for a change

 

[Syphoniera]

The odds are reasonably good the worms are some other form of live food, as they came from an LFS - but apparently a lot of nasty parasites can be carried in daphnia, as well as in larger live foods.
I'll just add that I wouldn't put any unidentified nematodes/worms in my tanks, but I've had horrible problems with infected fish...
Anyway, did a fast Google and thought I'd stick these in, just in case anyone's interested.

These below are interesting because they contain info on home-raising safe daphnia.
Something I ought to start doing one of these days...


[URL="http/www.petfish.net/articles/Foods_And_Feeding/daph.php"]http/www.petfish.net/articles/Foods_And_Feeding/daph.php[/URL]

...Serious oldtimer Aquarist used to go on collecting trips for daphnia every weekend and they considered daphnia the best fish food available. I don't advise collecting wild daphnia because of the potential of possibly bringing home diseases, parasites or other undesirables along with the daphnia. ...


[URL="http/www.tinkerfish.com/aquarium/2005/09...ia_for_the.html"]http/www.tinkerfish.com/aquarium/2005/09...ia_for_the.html[/URL]

... Daphnia are a great food source for both young and adult aquarium fish, you could catch them with a net in a pond, but their's a risk of bringing in parasites. I just found an article about growing daphnia yourself, nice read for the real tinkers out there ...

(Edit - no, the author of the Tinkerfish article above NOT was drinking at the time of writing - the little party guy just kind of moved in after I copied that bit here.
And I can't very well add an extra space or anything, since it's a quote...)

(Included this, if anyone IS interested and has a hard time finding things like this, or would simply like to see options for live food.)

[URL="http/www.livefishfoodshop.com/shop_fryfood.html"]http/www.livefishfoodshop.com/shop_fryfood.html[/URL]


And I thought this was REALLY interesting - live daphnia added to tanks to auto-feed fish while owners went on vacation.
If only they could be trained to do waterchanges as well...

[URL="http/www.thekrib.com/Food/daphnia.html#0"]http/www.thekrib.com/Food/daphnia.html#0[/URL]

 

[iSnail]

They could be glass worms (white mosquito larvae). I feed those to my dwarf puffers.

 

[carrera]

They could be glass worms (white mosquito larvae). I feed those to my dwarf puffers.

This seems to be a positive ID

Link is there if anyone else wants to info on them.

Good call, thanks!

 

[OldMan47]

This from Syphoniera
I just found an article about growing daphnia yourself, nice read for the real tinkers out there ) ...

Sign me up as one of those tinkers. I started trying to keep and raise my own daphnia about 6 weeks ago when I got a culture at a club auction. So far I have had more frustration than success but that was true when I first started keeping fish too. It takes a while to learn what you need to know. Meanwhile, I know my fish like daphnia because they go nuts over the frozen ones they get fed.

 

[Syphoniera]

This from Syphoniera
I just found an article about growing daphnia yourself, nice read for the real tinkers out there ) ...

Sign me up as one of those tinkers. I started trying to keep and raise my own daphnia about 6 weeks ago when I got a culture at a club auction. So far I have had more frustration than success but that was true when I first started keeping fish too. It takes a while to learn what you need to know. Meanwhile, I know my fish like daphnia because they go nuts over the frozen ones they get fed.

Hi, OldMan47,
that is so cool!
I hope you'll keep us updated on this - there's no better preparation for trying something like that like hearing about the pitfalls dealt with and the solutions devised by somebody learning who's smarter than certain of his listeners - well, one, anyway.

If you ever have a problem growing green water to feed your daphnia, you could try temporarily putting a baby bristlenose in an earth-bottomed Walstad with a very light, mobile substrate, only to then be unable to move her into her destined tank for much longer than anticipated, so that she wiggles and snouts, disrupting soil into the water column on a regular basis until green water develops.
Or, you just could take the easy route, and just try mixing a little top-soil in the water...
Sure seems to work a treat...