Critters in the Java Moss

[johnnyxxl]

an adult dragonfly when it is in its flight stage can not bite a person as it has no mouth when it morphs into that stage. Nor can it sting, or in any way harm anything. This stage is rather short lived as its only to breed and find a place to lay eggs for the next generation.

 

[tyella]

Thanks Johnny,
I was doubting that they would bite.

As an aside, I have been pierced by some kind of hemipteran, I think , when examining inverts in a benthic macroinvertebrate sample. I stuck my hand in the sample to pull out the plants that had gotten caught in the dredge sampler and something ZAPPED me! It hurt for quite a while after that.

 

[Veneer]

an adult dragonfly when it is in its flight stage can not bite a person as it has no mouth when it morphs into that stage. Nor can it sting, or in any way harm anything. This stage is rather short lived as its only to breed and find a place to lay eggs for the next generation.

Actually, dragonflies do indeed possess powerful mandibles capable of inflicting superficially painful injuries if mishandled [you likely have certain mayflies in mind]; however, in an aquarium setting, it would be much more likely that any insect larva would drown in the absence of emergent decor while or immediately after metamorphosing into a winged adult.

 

[Fome]

most common leeches, like you said, feed on snails more than anything. This can be annoying, however if you like your little snails. I lost all my snails at one point (had a healthy population of pond, MTS, and ramshorn) except for one defiant ramshorn. I finally found the culprit hitching a ride on my last ramshorn and promptly disposed of him. Freakin' nasty leach. My fish were all fine though.

I honestly wouldn't worry about all the other stuff. You may want to look into your water quality however, maybe lowering your nitrates would be wise?

 

[tyella]

Thanks, Fome.
Perhaps. It's lame, but I have not NO3 test kit right now. I'm going to work a full run of test kits into my budget, but my darling wife and I aren't on the same page with my aquarium fascination. So budget discussions usually end with more practical things getting priority.

Ironically, I work in a water quality lab. I could sneak a few samples through the "mill", but the lag time is too long to be very useful for the aquarium world.

I think the Java moss may have been the culprit and I think if I pull it out, the problems will subside. I want to move to only vascular plants, anyway. The Java moss looked like crap when I got it, so it has probably been decaying. It has since taken off, with the old gunk starting to disappear. That may be what is driving my snail population.