I have a 55 gallon tank that has been established for a 1 1/2 years. Last week I noticed tiny black or dark grey round bugs in my water filter container. Now this week the amount has increased and there are tons of them swimming around. When I pulled out my 2 filter bags, there is probably around 500 of them just is a 1/2 cup of water. Most of them are in the gravel. They are very tiny. They swim, not crawl. They are the size of a pin head and kind of look like a poppy seed. When using a magnifying glass, they look like they have black & white stripes. I do not see any of them on my fish, but my fish are dying every day. I do not see any white spots like ick. I have guppies and swordtails. The fish usually hang around the top of the water or down on the bottom, swimming in one spot. I do not have any live plants. I have not added any new fish for over 6 months. The bugs are too small to take a picture of. Also, I discovered tonight, 2 white/cream worms around 3 mm. in length. They had a pointy arrow shaped head. When viewing through a magnifying glass, their body had itty bitty black dots inside them.
Tiny Black Bugs
- Thread starter tdjac
- Start date
OMG I think I had some of these too. Are they incredibly small (like black pepper dust). What I saw almost looked like incredibly tiny black spiders with short legs and a round body. Thats the best way I can describe it. They moved around pretty quickly too.
Well they were in my filter so I just dumped it into the toilet and flushed. I'm guessing I got rid of some but I bet some remained and are breeding. Dont even know what they are.
The ‘bw striped poppy seeds’ are ostracods and the ‘arrow headed worms’ are planaria. The ones that look like little spiders may be aquatic mites.
Tom
Tom
Last edited:
guess you got your answer about the bugs ! 
You said thatyour fish are dying every dya and hanging at top or bottom swimming in one spot.
THAT makes me say trest your wateR! AMMONIA, NITRIES NITRATES AND PH
if you absolutely Have to have a fishstore test these for you the first time ( like you have no test kits and cant afford them or something) then please make sure you get the fish store to tell you real numbers of each of the answers.
I have seen and heard of fish acting like that when there is a ph, ammonia or nitrite problem.
You said thatyour fish are dying every dya and hanging at top or bottom swimming in one spot.
THAT makes me say trest your wateR! AMMONIA, NITRIES NITRATES AND PH
if you absolutely Have to have a fishstore test these for you the first time ( like you have no test kits and cant afford them or something) then please make sure you get the fish store to tell you real numbers of each of the answers.
I have seen and heard of fish acting like that when there is a ph, ammonia or nitrite problem.
I found a picture on the internet for Planaria and that is what they look like. I couldn't find one for Ostracods to see if they looked like them or not.
Half of my fish seem normal. The other half are more lifeless. Their color seems faded and their breathing seems more rapid. They are not scratching on the rocks or ornaments. They seem to be eating pretty good.
My test results are as follows:
Ammonia - 0
Nitrate - 20
Nitrite - .5
Usually my Nitrate & Nitrite are 0. I haven't did a water change for 2 - 3 weeks, because my local pet store said I was doing too many water changes and thought I messed up my biological filter. I only started doing weekly water changes of about 30% because my fish were dying a lot and I found the bugs. I plan on doing a water change and siphoning the gravel this weekend, I was just hoping I could find out what to treat the water and/or bugs with.
Half of my fish seem normal. The other half are more lifeless. Their color seems faded and their breathing seems more rapid. They are not scratching on the rocks or ornaments. They seem to be eating pretty good.
My test results are as follows:
Ammonia - 0
Nitrate - 20
Nitrite - .5
Usually my Nitrate & Nitrite are 0. I haven't did a water change for 2 - 3 weeks, because my local pet store said I was doing too many water changes and thought I messed up my biological filter. I only started doing weekly water changes of about 30% because my fish were dying a lot and I found the bugs. I plan on doing a water change and siphoning the gravel this weekend, I was just hoping I could find out what to treat the water and/or bugs with.
tdjac said:
The pet store was wrong. Water changes are always good. There is very little nitrifying bacteria in the water column.
Second, there are many kinds of ostracods. Here is a great site to start investigating them http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/index.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/pond/index.html
Go to the second last box “Anthropods”, then that will get you to a link on ostracods.
Right. pet store was wrong. majority of working biofilter exists attatched to things not in the water. mostly your filter media because it is usualy the best oxegenated. do you change your filter often?
do you think you have any chloramines in the water? what conditioner are you using?
That nitrIte level would acount for what you describe in the effected fish I suiggest you change waterASAP until you get the level dowbn to zero.
The questions above were to help figure out Why the nitrites might be rising in an established tank.
maybe cut back on feeding some.
do you think you have any chloramines in the water? what conditioner are you using?
That nitrIte level would acount for what you describe in the effected fish I suiggest you change waterASAP until you get the level dowbn to zero.
The questions above were to help figure out Why the nitrites might be rising in an established tank.
maybe cut back on feeding some.
Thanks for the website. The Ostracods do look a lot like what I have. Even with doing the gravel cleaning and water change, I'm sure I will still have bugs left in there. Do you have any suggestions on getting rid of them and also how often should I do a water changes to try to clean the bugs out? The few Planaria I saw, the pet store shop said not to worry about them. They would eventually die or get eaten by the fish. I hope so.