Weird daphnia looking things

Bettacreek

Bettacreek

AC Members
Apr 2, 2008
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Central Pennsylvania
Not sure if this is in the right area, sorry if it's not...

Anyways, I have a 5g bucket that has had fish gunk in the bottom of it for a few months now. I suck my smaller tanks down into this bucket, then check for fish, then siphon it down the drain with my long water changer. Anyways, I haven't fully dumped it because I have a bunch of snails in it, so there's always been some water and some gunk on the bottom of it. Today I went to grab the bucket and found a bunch of little white bugs twitching around through it. They move like daphnia, but a lot of them have two "legs" coming off of the back of them (not antennae, but maybe males or babies or something?). They're thinner than daphnia and more elongated (they look like tiny pieces of white Good 'n' Plenty candies, but some have the two small things on the back). So, any idea what they are?
 
They're not worms, and definately not planaria. They're some type of copepod, but I'm not sure exactly which species. I'm looking it up and checking it out.
 
The white appendages on the copepods are egg sacs. Good luck figuring out which species they are; there are a ton of them and most are very similar to one another. If you really want to know, send them to a specialist.
 
I wonder if I could actually culture them as an additional food for the Endlers... Are most of the copepods cultured in the same way, or are there specialized methods for each species?
 
I find those little bugs mixed in with daphnia in the little pond near my house. So I guess you would culture them similar to daphnia. They stay very small however, if they are the same bugs I have. Not big enough to provide much food unless you have fry.
 
Thanks. :) I'm just trying to vary the diets a little more. They are probably the same or similar. They're only about a millimeter long. For the endlers, I am restarting some grindals, plus the new daphnia, and the copepods would just be a little extra for variety. I will try these with fry as well, if I can get a good culture going. I'm just trying to use more live foods and keep it varied, so it's not a big deal if they don't make up a huge bulk in anyone's diet. I'll pull some out and set them up like the daphnia and feed spirulina and yeast and see where it goes from there.
 
I haven't specifically cultured copepods, but they thrive in my daphnia colony. Let us know how your experiment turns out!
 
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