Help Request, Tiny White Organisms

[aquafrogstuff]

I was feeding my fish this evening when I noticed the tank almost completely filled with these tiny little white balls. When I looked closer I realised they were alive and climbing all over the driftwood in the tank. If the tank had been empty I would have concluded they were spider babies because they move exactly like them. They are so small their form cannot be seen with the naked eye. They just look like tiny little white/grey balls that cling to the draftwood, glass, plants. There seems to be hundreds if not thousands. They're eveywhere.

Fish seem OK. No apparent stress. All water parameters OK. Temp 29degC. Water nice and clear. Tank contains bristle nose, balck ghost knife, 6 serpae tetras, elephant nose and four young adult discus.

Only change to tank environment other than water change is a new discus that came from local fish shop. I'm sure these 'things' didn't come from the shop because I studied the new fish in the tank for a while before buying it.

Any ideas would be appreciated. Does anyone know what Serpae Tetra fry look like???

[Simone]

aquafrogstuff, sounds like black snails to me and if so they are buggers to get rid of! Have you bought any new plants or driftwood from you LFS recently??

[Merrilyn]

It does sound a lot like tiny snails, just hatched.

You can try removing them by hand (a huge job) or buy a couple of clown loaches. Clown loaches just love snails to 'death' LOL.

[Dangerous Dave]

Could be planaria?
I have seen these worms in clusters from time to time.

[Merrilyn]

Could be Dave.

Maybe a pic would help with identification.

AFS, any chance of a pic?

[aquafrogstuff]

Pics are hard. They are so small they look like tiny little white dots. The actual body of these organisms cannot be seen with the human eye. I've never come across this before (see pic below).

They move like little spiders i.e. climbing all over the drift wood. Many of them have died now, but many still live on. All of the fish seem OK. Strange :?

[marg]

I reckon they are probably baby snails - that what they look like to me anyway - you say they are climbing all over everything - that's what snails do. Have you got snails in your tank?

Regards,

Marg.

[nicholas76]

Interesting !

did you add new wood or plants, Id say its originated from one of those sources.

keep us posted!

[aquafrogstuff]

No new items added to the tank. Its really wierd. I thought of snails, but they seem to move too quickly to be a snail. When refer to them being like little spiders, thats because they seem to move that fast. It's got me knackered, but doesn't seem to the affecting anyone in the tank so I think I'll just an keep an eye on progress before hitting the tank with something like formaldahyde.

[wickedglass]

My guess is, that if they look like little balls and move like baby spiders, then you've probably somehow introduced water mites into your tank. These aliens of the deep (or shallows) can be a small as under 1 mm! Mites are related to spiders (Arachnidae). I've never had them in a tank, but as far as I can ascertain they aren't harmful to adult fish, but they may be detrimental to small fry, not sure though. They usually feed on other small aquatic insects by sucking them dry ... not such a bad fate you might think, but I'm sure there's many an empty husk of an insect that wouldn't agree.
I've attached some pictures I've found on the net, to help you decide if you really do have mites. The rotunda is an american species, so you probably don't have that, but the other two are found in australian fresh water habitats.
I have no idea how to remove them, but one thing you may try is bombing your water with the usual salt treatment. Your ghost knife and elephant nose (because they're scaleless fish) may have to be moved to a temporary home for the duration. I know that the salt treatment works with external parasites because the increased specific gravity will actually burst the parasites, burst the parasites, burst the parasites (sorry about the echo, but I thought that little line sounded pretty cool and rather sci-fi). I don't however know if this would work on mites. I don't know if formaldehyde is the answer either, but if you end up using it be very very careful not to overdose. And make sure the fish aren't where you're introducing the formaldehyde dose, they may think you're feeding them and get a full whack of it and possibly die, die, die!!! But like I said, I don't have any experience with mites. And who knows, I could be wrong and they may be totally harmless to even the smallest fish fry!
If you do think they're mites, then I suggest doing more research on them and basing your treatment on that. Perhaps contacting one of the aquatic biologists at the university of WA (or a place of aquaculture/research) may give you more leads. One of them (if they're not too busy with their own agenda or picking their nose) may even be kind enough to look with disdain at your creatures under a microscope and suggest a treatment program.
If this doesn't sound like your problem, it could be a large species of paramecium. I've had those in my tank before, they look kind of whitish, but they have an elongated shape, they slide (totally unspider-like), rather than crawl and I never bothered getting rid of them, as some of the fish liked eating them.
Or maybe it's really .... ALIENS!!!!!:monkey: ... aaaaargh!!! wwwooeeeeeeeeoooooooooeeeeoooeooeooeooeooeooooooo
on a mission to find a new homeworld, and your tank is IT!!! "Take us to your wormfeeder, or the suckerfishmonster gets it !!!"

hope that helps in getting a bit more of a lead, or discounting another possibility, on your problem

good luck, captain!
may the horseface be with you!

[aquafrogstuff]

GDay Chris,

Firstly thank you for bringing some humour to the forum. A great read. Alians or not, the little white buggers will be getting a dose of something very soon!!

I've made contact with a local vet today about getting someother medication. I was going to see if I could catch a few and give them to the vet to look at under a microscope so I can get some professional help with the diagnosis.

Thanks for the lengthy missive anyway. I want to play it safe whatever I end up doing or I'll have dead fishies and my wife will be unimpressed because we'll have to sell one of the kids in the internet so I can buy more discus (maybe I can throw in the dog and get another knife fish.....).

Will keep you posted.


Dwayne

[aquafrogstuff]

Uh, the comment about the kids was joke, please stop ringing the police.

[wickedglass]

any news on solving your problem?

[marg]

Yeah, how's it going?

Regards,

Marg.

[aquafrogstuff]

No news yet. I've taken a water sample from the tank with a small piece of driftwood, but I haven't had a chance to get it to the vet yet.

I have however done a 80% water change and removed all the driftwood from the tank. Certainly reduced the population a lot. The other thing I did was put a small internal filter with cotton wool instead of the usuall sponge in the tank to act as a fine particles filter. It also made a huge difference in reducing the mite population. I'm almost certain it's some sort of water mite. Other than that that I've been too cautious about adding medication at this stage.

I'm bascially monitoring the tank's condition to see if it worsens. There's definately still tiny little mites on their, but significantly reduced.

The plan at the moment is to get some feedback on the vet before adding any medications.

Other than that I'll keep you posted.