These appeared in my tank, what are they?

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Autumnnights

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Aug 21, 2015
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This is the best picture I could get, there are a few of them, everything has been in the tank since April, no new decorations, no new plants, no new fish. They like little orange sea shells with antennae, they seem to Be staying in the rocks or are attaches to the glass. Are they harmless? Harmful? My kids feed the fish, are these something that could make them sick?

image.jpg
 

Turbosaurus

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Dec 26, 2008
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Yonkers, NY
Its a snail. They show up regularly, their eggs coming in with fish/plants etc and they are completely harmless.
 

Turbosaurus

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Dec 26, 2008
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Yonkers, NY
Some people view them as pests, but they're just a natural part of the environment. If you don't like them, there's thing you can do to kill them, certain medications are safe for fish but poison to inverts, but do you really want to have what basically amounts to pesticides in your tank? If you want to get rid of them, ime, your best bet is to look for a fish that eats them that is compatible with your other tank inhabitants. I don't know what else is in your tank Yoyo loaches and their ilk love to eat them,
 

Autumnnights

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Aug 21, 2015
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They can show up so long after everything was put into the tank?

Could they show up from over feeding? It is now the kids job to feed the fish, and the fish have been slightly over fed for the last two weeks.
 

Autumnnights

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Aug 21, 2015
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Thank you all. I am just paranoid after trying to Google search and then panicking thinking they could be some awful parasite and then the panic of the kids helped clean the tank tonight.
 

wesleydnunder

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Dec 11, 2005
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Mark
They can show up so long after everything was put into the tank?

Could they show up from over feeding? It is now the kids job to feed the fish, and the fish have been slightly over fed for the last two weeks.
They are teeny when babies so you probably missed them when they were introduced. Looks like Malaysian Trumpet Snails. As said, harmless; though, if y'all continue to overfeed, they will get to pestilential numbers in a hurry. They are livebearers, so they didn't arrive as eggs. They have what's called an operculum, a trapdoor, which they can use to seal off their shells for an extremely long time. I had some hiding inside some driftwood that I had taken out of my tank and left outside for a year. Thinking they were all dead and gone, I put the driftwood in my tank. A few months later, guess what?

Mark
 

Narwhal72

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Aug 13, 2009
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They have probably been in the tank for a long time. Just not in enough numbers for you to notice them. They do feed on extra fish food so if the tank is well fed the population will increase dramatically as there are more resources for them. Cutting back the feeding will reduce the population but will not eliminate it.
 

Autumnnights

Registered Member
Aug 21, 2015
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Thank you all. We are slowly taking the snails out and our local aquarium store has offered to trade us fish or tank supplies for the snails. No more letting the kids feed the fish.
 
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