Please help identify. Little white creatures.

[oyashare]

Hi guys. I was wondering if anyone knew what this could be. Recently I saw all these little, white, round things all over my drift wood. They look like those little red spiders, except they are white. But they move around, and I have looked on the web with no luck.

Thanks,

Omid

[ChilDawg]

Check out www.skepticalaquarist.com and check back with us if WetmanNY doesn't have the right type of critter listed there.

[oyashare]

ChilDawg, I was looking at the site, it only has fishes, communities, feeding, plants, and water, and there was no mention of any crittes under any of them. Is there any specific one you wanted me to look at?

Thanks,

Omid

[GEV83]

Go to the list scroll down to invertibrates and to anthropods. When you get there read up on the water mites and the ootheres there and let us know if thats it.

[ChilDawg]

What he said. It's a frames site, so you need to scroll down on the frames.

[oyashare]

Woops. I was a dumbass. I didn't see the scroll bar. I checked the Invertebrates and it was non of those. Anything else it could be?

Thanks,

Omid

[ChilDawg]

I can't remember if WetmanNY has amphipods there or not...try Googling those.

[oyashare]

ChilDawg, thats not it either. I will try to take some pics tonight, see if you guys can identify them. Thanks for all your help everyone.

Omid

[ChilDawg]

Sorry I couldn't be of more help. Hopefully the pix will reveal the answer quite quickly. Best of luck.

~Matthew

[wetmanNY]

hmm, amphipods are an omission.
oyashare, can you see if they have eight legs (you'll need a loupe): that would make them water mites.

amphipods are laterally compressed. they look as though they're lying on their side, and they scoot.

[GEV83]

Is this it just this pic is way blown up.



Water mites are familiar to everyone who ever observed pond water. The larger species are clearly visible as fast swimming sometimes deep red spider like creatures. Determination of to what genus a water mite belongs is not very hard but when you want to determine the species it becomes much more difficult. It is a real specialists work. You have to examine the reproductive organs, the eyes or palps to be able to distinguish the often very similar species.
http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/imgdec99/mite2sm.jpg

[oyashare]

Ok guys, here is the picture. Its the little white spots on the driftwood. Thanks guys.
For bigger pictures please go to HERE (http://www.omidy.com/spots.htm)

Omid

[Tom.E]

Some of those critters look oblong; they may be ostracods. Still hard to tell from the photo.

Omid, are there any in the water column? Try turning off the filter to cut water flow and scattering some off the driftwood. Ostracods are good swimmers and will zip around the tank. Adult water mites generally don’t stay in the water column too long. Aquatic mite larvae are a different story.

BTW, if you don’t have any magnifying lenses a 35mm camera lens will do. Looking through the reverse side will give about the same magnification as a 6x loupe.


Tom

[oyashare]

Thanks Tom. Ok, when they are swimming, they look like flys flying. They hover around, which looks like out of control, but then they land. Sometimes it looks like they jump from place to place. Any idea now? Oh, also, upon closer inspection, they look like they have a greenish tone to them.

Thanks,

Omid

[wetmanNY]

(Excellent mite portrait, G.E.R.)

[Tom.E]

They sure sound like ostracods to me. The different colors aren’t obvious to the naked eye because of their shell transparency and size. Under a dissecting microscope some shells are dotted and others have camouflage patterns.

See if this site helps. Downloading the movie might be helpful http://www.gre.ac.uk/schools/nri/earth/ostracod/introduction.htm


Tom

[oyashare]

Thanks Tom. They somewhat look like that. Should i be worried about them in my tank? or should i just let them be?

Thanks,

Omid

[Tom.E]

They’re not parasitic if that’s what you’re after. It does look like you have a stampede going on. If they get to be too much you can thin them out by water vacuuming or capturing some with a brine shrimp net.

Ostracods primarily eat decaying organic matter and algae. If you can keep the tank and filter clean you should see a drop off in numbers.

Other than that, they’re cute little guys.


Tom

[oyashare]

Ok cool. Thanks. What about water mites? are they parasitic?

Omid

[wetmanNY]

No. Not of fishes. Though some are microscopic and I think there are mites that wander around on fish skin, like the ones living in the creases of your forehead or among your eyelashes. They live off oils and skin cells you're sloughing off. Does that make them technically parasites?

[optix]

interestingly enough I just found this thread and I have this same problem now in one of my tanks, the little guys are every where attaching to my oscar and walking around on it, I see them walking around my slate and just as mentioned before they swim out of control. I have a major swarm too, rather weird little things.

[ChilDawg]

That would make for a cool effect--if the people seeing it understood that these are not evil little critters, but a sign of a nice ecosystem within glass walls!

[wetmanNY]

Uh oh. If you can see 'em and they're moving around on your fish it sounds less like microscopic mites and more like Argulus, the fishlouse. Try a www.google.com search, in IMG (image) mode, for Argulus.

[optix]

They are too small to be able to tell, they are reeeeaally small, you have to look really hard to see them, so I can't tell, but when they are on my oscar I can see em, they've been in there for a couple weeks even after water changes and nothing bad has happened.