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| Bugs in my tank. Micro Photography identification |
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When I did a water change about 3 months ago, I noticed little black spots appearing and disappearing all over the surface of the water. Looking closely I realized they were bugs, and were also crawling around on the glass, and on my breeder net a little too. It was suggested they could be daphnia, and I figured this was probably right, but I thought mine were crawling, and I never saw them swim, which I presumed daphnia would. To cut to the end of the story, I got a little portable microscope, and found these little guys all over in the tank. They stay at about the water line, crawling around looking for things to eat(?).
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research from the board identified them as Springtails from the family Sminthuridae. They are often semi-aquatic and like to skate around on the surface film. Surface-oriented fish will love to gobble them up. My dad gave me a very cool little gadget last month. It is a 60-100x illuminated microscope from RadioShack. I used it to ID some springtails in my fish tank. At the time I just drew what I saw, and Cindy identified them from that sketch. Today I used my camera and microscope and got some pictures to share with you all!
Some 6000 species of springtail are known worldwide. I think mine are Globular or "Sminthuridae" (could be wrong here, but probably not, thanks Matt) They eat fungi and molds, as well as decaying plant matter. The whitish springtails I think are Sminthurides. The black ones I think are Bourletiella. Do the whitish ones look kind of pink/tan and the black ones look like dark grape purple? Those were my best guesses for my thesis work, I couldn't get an actual Collembola expert to verify my IDs. Other micro photos of some common pest
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