View Full Version : EEEW! Bugs on surface of water!
I have these tiny bugs living on the surface of the water in my 100g tank. There's like this algae scum on the surface and these little things jump around on it. They're about a millimeter long and have a distinct head, abdomen, and 6 legs. What the heck are they, how did they get in my tank, and how do I get rid of them?
Filtration: Eheim 2028 and Eheim 2213
Lighting: 4x55W PC
wetmanNY
06-14-2003, 8:05 PM
Harmless springtails a.k.a. collembola. Draw a paper towel across the surface, lifting up the front edges as you go, and you'll decimate them.
Try www.google.com in the image mode (IMG tab): "collembola"
Yours are probably Podura aquatica.
How can you want to get rid of a creature before you know what it is? Get a magnifier and peer at the community among the gravel grains against the glass! It's a whole world in there.
Heady
06-14-2003, 11:55 PM
My motto is, if I don't know they're there, then I don't care.
Nas-TAY. Gonna kill 'em. :eek:
somefinnfishy
06-14-2003, 11:56 PM
you had a sea monkey farm as a kid didnt you wetman
Or maybe a ant farm?
wetmanNY
06-15-2003, 8:08 AM
I wasn't that much of a hands-on kid. I didn't have a microscope til I was over fifty. I was always intrigued by the way this summer's thrown-out vegetables were black compost by next summer. And we were hatching brine shrimp, I think, for the Dwarf Gourami fry (none made it) when I was ten or eleven. I caught some butterflies for a year or two, but I never learned anything about them-- oddly, because I was generally so geekatoid.
I have always wanted an ant farm: hung on the wall in a nice picture frame, with a cloth to keep it dark til you want to look. Maybe it's not too late...