i found this strage little crustacean in my tank. i assume he came in on some plants. he is about 3/4 of an inch. when i put him in the plastic tub to take a pic, he started swimming around franticly and is apparently a very good swimmer (he looks like hes doing "the mermaid" but a turbo version...)
yeah, definitely dragon fly larvae. Last year, 2 of these must've been in my tank.... imagine my surprise when there were dragon flies sitting on top of my tank...... though I've never seen any around my house...
thanks.
thats really wierd because i have had the plants for about 1 and a half months. (there are no fish in the tank though)
so i suppose i should just put him outside then?
Dragon fly myphs are voracious predators, and if introduced, could wipe out the local waters stock of micro fauna. If he molts successfully in your tank, you'll be hard pressed keeping him well fed. Rather than introduce a high-level predator, you'd be better off killing it, or letting it molt in your tank and releasing the adult (lacking a partner, there's no concern of reproduction).
Of course, if the plants he came in on are from local waters, no concern, just return him to those waters.
we have plenty of dragonflies around here. not sure if it is the same variety though...
plants came from petsmart...
maybe ill return him to the store. hehe
That’s a damselfly nymph. Newly hatched nymphs are tiny and can be tough to find. I sometimes have trouble finding them in a debris filled petri dish under a dissecting microscope. That’s probably why you missed him when he came in with the plants.
Damselfly larvae are a little less daunting than dragonflies if you want to see them through to maturity. I raise them. My young niece sure isn’t afraid of them. She likes to raise the glass cover on the tanks and try to get them to land on her finger.
yeah, I had a couple damselfly nymphs show up in my 36. I just turned them loose in the middle of the water and let my giant danio's have at them. I've never seen any adult nymphs so they've evidently all been eaten. dragonfly nymphs are much broader and flatter bodied with a spiny look to the body where damselflies are thinner bodied. from what I read damselflies are harmless where as stated, dragonflies are predators. KYle
