# little white bugs on driftwood



## Dielectric

so the other day i noticed all these white dots on a piece of driftwood. i looked closer and they were moving. scurrying around the surface of the driftwood, some attempting to swim for a few seconds then falling back to the stump. They are maybe a little bigger than a pin head. They are multiplying rather quickly and spreading to other pieces of wood and everywhere else i assume. i dont really see them in the water column, but im sure they are there.

I've poked around on here and havent found a definate answer as to what they are, how they got there, and why they are there. i dont kave a scope, or a magnifying glass.

what is a good way to get rid of them, w/o destroying everything else? I dont really have any small fish in there to eat them. so if i did buy some they would have to go through a months worth of QT. looking for a quicker remedy.


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## KevinFowles

If its in the same little white bugs that I've encountered before, the only thing that got rid of them was bleach, and that's after using every parasite remover and medication that was available.

But that's only an IF...

And I believe they're just a type of freshwater copepod...


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## Dielectric

i dont know if its a coincidence or not, but since ive been seeing the "bugs" my algae has been disappearing. it's 80% gone. i'm left with only patches of bba here and there.


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## aquatic_clay

It's a type of flatworm called planeria. They do eat algea. From what i've seen they are pretty harmless. I had these in one of my tanks and they went away with out any special treatment or my guarmis ate them


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## Dielectric

aquatic_clay said:


> It's a type of flatworm called planeria. They do eat algea. From what i've seen they are pretty harmless. I had these in one of my tanks and they went away with out any special treatment or my guarmis ate them


No these are different than planeria. they are sort of flea shaped.


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## marrow

Daphnia perhaps. Do they swim in a jerky sort of motion? Or do they swim in a little circular motion. Do they have little antennae visible. If the latter one then cyclops. If it is daphnia, there population will likely peak and crash all by itself. What else is in the tank? just shrimp?.Chances are that once their food supply is gone, (ie BBA) they will soon follow.


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## Dielectric

marrow said:


> Daphnia perhaps. Do they swim in a jerky sort of motion? Or do they swim in a little circular motion. Do they have little antennae visible. If the latter one then cyclops. If it is daphnia, there population will likely peak and crash all by itself. What else is in the tank? just shrimp?.Chances are that once their food supply is gone, (ie BBA) they will soon follow.


I dont see any antennae. but i dont have a scope or anything. They will "float" up from the wood, then sort of jerkily dart about an inch and land in a different area, sometimes it seems they might swim in a semi circular motion. i'll have to watch them more closely.

Its a tank full of discus, and 1 solitary scalare. they are way to small to be food for them, unfortunately.

theres probably 1000's of them in there.


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## Cavan Allen

Might be scuds. I'm at work now, or I'd give you a better answer. A lead on searching perhaps.


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## bartoli

Dielectric said:


> so the other day i noticed all these white dots on a piece of driftwood. i looked closer and they were moving. scurrying around the surface of the driftwood, some attempting to swim for a few seconds then falling back to the stump. They are maybe a little bigger than a pin head.


Looks like they are bourletiellidae. I sometime saw them moving about on the surface of floating leaves. Had they been stationed, I would have mistaken them for mere white dust particles. Here is a picture of what I took using a macro lens:










For more info and pictures, see:

http://www.collembola.org/taxa/bouridae.htm


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## ecotanker

I wonder if they can be cultured for fish food?


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## Viwwo

.......... They are kind of cute..... but yeah, I would not want them in my tank.
I have some other weird things that swim about like....sperm:suspiciou:.... and my fish love them. So just maybe like some people said before me, get some small fish that will gobble them up.


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## bartoli

Viwwo said:


> .......... They are kind of cute..... but yeah, I would not want them in my tank.


They are surprisingly cute when to the naked eyes they are mere specks of dust. If your NPT has floating plants and some of the water surface is still, look closely and you will probably see something like tiny specks of dust over the surface of leaf or water. If you disrupt the water surface and see spray-like particles sprung up, those are the creatures. They are so small and light weight that they actually walk on still water as if walking on solid surface.

While taking the picture, I observed them through the camera eye piece. They were very interactive. I saw them confronting each other with their antenna waving. Those little buggers busily moved about almost non-stop. Quite an energetic bunch and very very cute! Amazing at how much life is in the size of a piece of dust.

From time to time, I saw fish nipping at the water surface, presumably trying to catch those little buggers as snack.


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## londonloco

Dielectric said:


> i dont know if its a coincidence or not, but since ive been seeing the "bugs" my algae has been disappearing. it's 80% gone. i'm left with only patches of bba here and there.


I want some white bugs! :-({|=


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## Dielectric

bartoli said:


> Looks like they are bourletiellidae. I sometime saw them moving about on the surface of floating leaves. Had they been stationed, I would have mistaken them for mere white dust particles. Here is a picture of what I took using a macro lens:
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> For more info and pictures, see:
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> http://www.collembola.org/taxa/bouridae.htm


Those could be it, but ive never seen them on the surface. i will do some poking around on the web today while i'm at work.. so far those or scuds seem to be what its been narrowd down to.


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## bartoli

If you have an Agfa Lupe, flip it up size down, hold it over the white dots and you will get a very good view.


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## lildark185

I bet these would make really good food for fish fry.


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## davemill

It's amazing how many living things have appeared in my tanks. I've seen planaria, nearly microscopic copepods, hydra, long red worms, various insect larvae, and little hoppy things on the surface and driftwood (perhaps what is being described in this post). None last long after the fish discover them, except the little hoppers. 

Try putting some dirty water from the substrate under a microscope. You'll quickly find out that in your "fish" tank, fish are the minority inhabitants, by a long shot!


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## lildark185

I have white/gray bugs on the top of my water. The output of my eheim is below the water surface but enough to move it around. A light film forms on top of the water and I just noticed these bugs jumping on the surface. I originally thought they were oxygen/co2 bubbles leaving the water popping but they are in fact bugs.


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## Dielectric

i have those jumpy little surface bugs in one of my soil tanks. i think they came in on some plants i collected


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## lildark185

My substrate is completely flourite. Unless they came from some plants I bought, I'm not sure where they'd come from.


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## Franzi

I had tiny bugs similar to what the OP mentioned. They would zip around the algae on the top of a piece of driftwood close to the top of the tank. They were there for a week or so, then I never saw them again. Maybe the pleco ate them up.


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