More strange critters!

[scott]

i just found that my daphnia culture has been invaded by hundreds of little creatures. at first i thought they were baby daphnia but they're not. they are very small, maybe half the size of 1 day old m. ramirezi fry. they are "tube" shaped with what looks like 2 tentacles or heads on one end. they are not hydra as i have seen them before. they swim like mosquito larvae and mostly hang out on the sides of the container until disturbed. they are also not mosquito larvae(very similar though). i know that this isn't the best description but they are very small and it's hard to see the details. if anyone has any ideas it would be a great help. i am afraid to feed the daphnia to my fish because i don't know if these creatures could pose a problem and there is no way to separate them from the daphnia.

 

[tjudy]

Interesting... do they swim? When they are disturbed do they move smoothly away, or do they thrash?

 

[scott]

they swim but it is very jerky like mosquito larvae not the same as the way daphnia swim. i'm stumped, i've never seen anything like them before. another thing i noticed, although it's probably unrelated, is a spider has spun a web a couple of inches over the surface of the water. maybe they are the larvae of some insect that was caught in the web, i'm just guessing though. this is indoors in my basement so there isn't an overabundance of bugs like outdoors.