what are these things????

Hi all, let me first explain the tank setup, it is a 30litre tank, plain black gravel, 2 small sponge filters, heater. tank was running for a while with a few live plants , some moss floating aorund and a single male betta.

a little while ago, i removed the male betta, and then added 4 tiny little ancistrus, one died shortly after being added to the tank, the other 3 seem happy.
then i got some driftwood from the lfs, 2 small pieces, together they weigh about 300g.
i boiled the wood, and then cleaned it nicely, then let it lay in a bucket of water for 3 days, changing the water each day and rinsing the wood nicely with the daily water change.
i added the wood to the tank on monday(this week), with some moss tied to it, a java fern and a anubia, the lighting is a normal clip on desk lamp(cfl)

yesterday while looking closely at the tank, i discovered tiny little fish jumping around in the water, tiny little things, and then also a few worm like creatures. WHAT ARE THESE???? i have no idea what these are and how they got into this tank.
does anybody have any idea what these are??? and are these little critters harmful to my ancistrus?????

it will be near impossible getting these critters out of the tank, because they are so tiny and there is no telling how mnay are there.

can anyone help me with this?

Thank You
N

 

google "hydra" and check it this is it?

 

The tiny fish is most probably ancistrus fry because I doubt the male betta managing that on hes own. As for the wormlike things... Those are most likely microworms that you see clinging to the glass (mostly at the top). My 30L tank also have them and my betta and skunk loaches love them

 

Jumping thingies.....Freshwater Copepods most likely...harmless and good fish munchies

Worm thingies.... tubifex worms(in gravel,thin,waves it's body),planaria (flat whitish 2 - 5mm worms crawlingon glass) or just some mozzie larvae?

 

@azurekoi I see the small critters specialist is up and about :wavey: morning

 

Not sure what they are called but you get the worm thingys from over feeding.

If you have a lot of excess food around in your tank you get these worms.

The small jumping things are almost like daphnia and I have seen them in some of my healthiest planted tanks only.

 

@Vis...that is the Planaria i was refering to... Yup... overfeeding is the main culprit... Mebendazole treatment will remove them as they are Flatworms.... Biological removal? A very hungry Paradise fish will munch them,that's about it... As for jumping thingies... Yeah,if it aint Copepods,it will be Daphnia...

@Double-D....he,he - yup back at work... Blergh!

 

thanks for the replies guys, appreciate the help, Azurekoi, i think you hitting the nail on the head dude, the worms are about 5mm and crawl on the glass, actually, i did see one or two in the water wriggling away.

as long as they are not harmful to ancistrus, then its cool

this cannot be because of over feeding... i only have those ancistrus in there, so i feed those small round ancistrus wafers, and i remove whats not eaten before i feed again.

so how do these things get into the tank????? at first i just thought they hitched a ride on the wood, but thats impossible considering the wood was bone dry and i treated the wood properly.

so i can just leave them be? no need to worry about trying to rid the tank of these critters or anything like that?

 

Here's your problem.... Midwater fish will finish off the food we give them within minutes... Bottom feeders take more time to do this + the wafer is lying on the substrate in wich the Planaria hide...
Do yourself a favour - go look at the tank at night - you will be shocked by the amount of Planaria you see...
Manual reduction of their numbers is possible by the old " piece of meat on a string at night " method.as well as regular,deep gravel vacuums... but wont get rid of them all.... Mebendazole treatments generally available from LFS's are generally aimed at koi ponds,so dosage in such a small tank can be risky...
In general,Planaria is no problem to adult fish,but they will eat eggsand non free swiming fry... + my main hassle with them is that they contribute MASSIVELY to the biological load of your tank...

As for introduction? Dont think there are many established tanks in the world that dont have some of them.... Hitches rides from plants...etc.

 

so they maybe hitched a ride on one of the plants from my main planted tank.thanks for all the info dude, really appreciate it.should i maybe add one or two fish? would this help? what fish would help control the amount if planaria??? do any fish eat them? and would these fish be ok with my baby ancistrus? the only fish in the tank currently are 3 tiny little ancistrus, so perhaps thats why these wrigglers are having a party, because there is nobody thats giving them a hard time in the tank.

 

@Nadeem - read 4 posts up... + have mentioned lots of ways to reduce their numbers...