What’s In My Tank?

So I’ve had a small tank set up for a few months, with a few ups and downs during but surprisingly no casualties however I’m just curious as I’ve seen little creatures hiding in the gravel that come out at night and swim around or stick to the glass, they’re like tiny white specks and are not long nor worm like and they’ve been around since I added glowlight tetras to the tank and they seem happy and healthy? Any ideas what they could be? I don’t believe they look like spry either, many thanks

I'm sure one of the more experienced folk will know...a picture might help if you can get one

I was attempting to get one but they’ve all decided to hide as the light’s on 

I know that small things are very hard to photograph, but if you could see what you can manage it would help a lot. There are Malaysian trumpet snails which hide in the substrate during the day and come out at night, but I wouldn't describe these as tiny white specks, more like brown miniature ice cream cones.

In the meantime, do you clean the gravel when you do a water change? This is done using a siphon tube and pushing the wide end into the gravel, moving position to do all the gravel. This will suck a lot of the offending creatures out of the tank.
And how often do you do a water change, and how much? We should change half the water every week.
How much do you feed the fish? Overfeeding is common, and the left over food - and fish poo - collecting in the gravel encourages all sorts of things to flourish down there.


It may take more questions to discover what these things are but we'll get there 

I’ve seen little creatures hiding in the gravel that come out at night and swim around...

Hi kbc,

If they're swimming around, that should rule out snails. My guess at the moment is cyclops but we need more detail.

JPC

Hmmm - my immediate thought was planaria but I'm not so sure now that I've seen the photo. Is there any possibility of taking a video and uploading the YouTube link? Sometimes it's easier to work out what creatures are by seeing their movement/behaviour.

Do these organisms swim with jerky movements?

JPC

Do these organisms swim with jerky movements?

JPC

Yes they do, like an irregular start stop

Thanks for posting that!... really interesting!