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Thousands of white squirmies crawling out of water?

PostPosted:13 Jan 2021 16:42
by Johnny Max
I was looking at my tank and noticed what at first glance I though was tiny salt crystals above the water surface.
Well, I put on two pairs of glasses and grabbed a magnifying glass and saw some of them moving. Some squirming and a couple looked like they were crawling. What ever they are, if theY eventually move into the water I will have THOUSANDS of them!
Any idea what they could be? It is brackish water,
Will the shrimp eat them?
Here are a few pictures.
The picture is as clear as I can get them because they are so small.
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They posted rotated, oh well....

Re: Thousands of white squirmies crawling out of water?

PostPosted:14 Jan 2021 03:18
by Shrimpin
Oh my gosh. The stuff of nightmares!! No idea what organism this is but maybe some type of worm?!? I think I’ve seen these in a batch of shrimp I received but I thought it was the shrimps’ poop and did not dump the water that came with the shrimp into the tank. Thank goodness. Waiting to hear from others to see what the cure is.


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Re: Thousands of white squirmies crawling out of water?

PostPosted:14 Jan 2021 17:50
by opaeforever
Look like tiny flat worm,
You can annihilate them by dosing
'NO PLANARIA' powder, use minimum recommended dose will do.
Just prepare some water, in case you need to do some water change when the worm massively died off.

Re: Thousands of white squirmies crawling out of water?

PostPosted:16 Jan 2021 01:01
by Vorteil
Those are not planaria. The typical FW planaria will not live in brackish water. Plus never use any type of medicine whether natural ingredients or not in an opae ula tank. No Planaria is great in the freshwater shrimp tank. I've used it a few time with good results.

For something like this I would do a major water change and wait.

Re: Thousands of white squirmies crawling out of water?

PostPosted:01 Feb 2021 19:29
by Johnny Max
I bought a usb/bluetooth camera that can magnify up to 1000x and I took pictures of them up close.
What are they?
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Re: Thousands of white squirmies crawling out of water?

PostPosted:07 Feb 2021 21:11
by odin
What are they? They are gross :smile: :grin2: :nerner:

Re: Thousands of white squirmies crawling out of water?

PostPosted:08 Feb 2021 13:26
by Johnny Max
odin wrote: 07 Feb 2021 21:11 What are they? They are gross :smile: :grin2: :nerner:
I was hoping someone could tell me?? :upset:

Re: Thousands of white squirmies crawling out of water?

PostPosted:10 Feb 2021 10:02
by Nauplius
they are just some species of large copepods, harmless.

Re: Thousands of white squirmies crawling out of water?

PostPosted:10 Feb 2021 15:01
by Johnny Max
Nauplius wrote: 10 Feb 2021 10:02 they are just some species of large copepods, harmless.
I Googles copepods and that is what they look like.
But these ae very tine. I can't really see them without magnification.
The pictures were magnified 10,000 time.
I wonder if the shrimp eat them?

Re: Thousands of white squirmies crawling out of water?

PostPosted:11 Feb 2021 12:59
by Nauplius
Most of copepods are detritivores, so they would eat shrimp faeces and other decaying organic matter as well as algae. The typical copepod size is 0.5 to 15 mm but there are much bigger deep water species. From your picture it seems that your copepods are trying to escape from your tank, perhaps you added some algae/rock/sand taken from marine environment so they hijacked in your tank on that object, but the salinity is not perfect for the particular species and they are trying to escape.