What is this bug in my snail aquarium?

M

mommy2girls!

AC Members
Jul 31, 2022
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magnified 10x it’s actually seen as just a zooming around black dot. Is it dangerous to my ramshorn or bladder snails?
 
Does it jump at that water surface? I'm not sure what it is...but that's a good pic to help ID it.

Most "other critters" are not very harmful to fish & may be food for them. Shrimp are of more concern I'd think (or maybe that's my invert prejudice, I don't worry about most snails like you do).
 
Nope it’s fully aquatic. Normally see several zooming around mid level or on bottom. There is a few of them in there. It moves in a fluid gliding motion through the water. No jerky jumpy movements at all. Normally lands around corner caulk. I’ve seen them for a while but today during a water change I caught a few of them and decided to investigate.
 
Ok it’s not only able to hop around and swim in the tank but it can also breathe out of water. I had one out for 10 minutes and it didn’t die. Looks like antennae? And feels hard like a beetle but still easily squishable. Here’s another picture for youIMG_1958.png
Don’t pay no mind to my old lady scaly super magnified skin lol
To me looks like a bug with paddle legs. Google only comes up with stonewort seed shrimp.
any ideas???
There’s not many. This is the only one I could find. Maybe my fish eat them.
 
Well, it seems a lot fatter than the 1 before, lol. But I have no ideas on what it might be...I hope your fish eat whatever it is without harm.

& your "old lady skin" (LOL) ain't seen nothing yet, no matter the magnification...it doesn't get better...enjoy it while you can ;)
 
Think maybe some kind of diving beetle like oddball said. I was totally inspecting one and it does have wings, paddle legs, club antennas. I had came up with that as a search before but was under the impression that they were bigger. Mine are almost microscopic. But due to an extra extensive search recently I’ve found some native species to my area that are 1-2mm. Pretty small like mine but different colors and patterns. They have to be magnified a lot in order to see any body structures. Where I live we are surrounded by major rivers on 3 sides and a man made beach on the 4th so yeah lots of water species locally. Seems they are another snail egg eater. But since sammi the assassin can’t keep up with the snails already I don’t think it’s a problem. I had been cutting back on feeding to prevent breeding anyways. And snails eat their own eggs when hungry enough. I’ve seen it. I recently bought a programmable hygger light to simulate morning and night transition lighting and it’s definitely overheating the tank. I put a little fan pointing directly to the water but I have to leave the lid half open. Also the windows are open in the house so I guess perfect access smh. Oh and fishorama I got a new 20 gallon and combined both fish and snails from both the 10 gallon tanks. Take a look nowIMG_2238.jpeg
I’m about to share some of my hornwort with a friend and maybe the smaller anubias. And yes I warned her that I have snails. If you zoom in you can see sammi the assassin on the bottom of the mopani right beside the little anubias
 
Today I was able to grab a smaller specimen in a pipette and put it under a microscope. At 300x magnification it was very clearly a stone seed shrimp. And yes tetras eat the little ones but not the adults so much. Not sure why it gave the appearance of a beetle without proper magnification. I guess lots of frequent gravel vacs are in my near future. They are multiplying
 
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